W Cape must step it up
PRESIDENTIAL DIRECTIVE: MORE BEDS AND STAFF MUST BE AVAILABLE
Ramaphosa praises the province’s district model of containment.
President Cyril Ramaphosa has made it clear the Western Cape needs to ramp up its Covid-19 response, saying no excuse will be accepted in the war on the disease.
Ramaphosa was joined by Health Minister Dr Zweli Mkhize and Western Cape Premier Alan Winde as the president assessed the province’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic yesterday. The Western Cape has by far the country’s greatest infection rates.
The president said the province’s high infection rate had been a matter of deep concern. Although he was happy with the presentation given by the Western Cape government on its Covid-19 response, more needed to be done to provide beds and ensure adequate staff numbers, he said.
“We need to pull up our socks and provide more beds.
“It is better to overprovide than underprovide.”
Ramaphosa praised the leadership of the province’s premier, Winde.
He was pleased the provincial government had been meeting national government quite often and had demonstrated a dynamic link.
“Premier Winde, I am also pleased with your leadership and that we work pretty well together.
“You have been the leading province with the district model, a much more effective level of containing Covid-19.”
Ramaphosa said the country was engaged in a war with the virus that had to be won and he wanted contact tracing to improve to help flatten the curve.
“Contacts, especially health workers who have tested positive for the virus, have to be tracked down.
“Not having enough staff members is an excuse I will not accept. We need to find more healthcare workers.”
The president said the province should rather overprovide the number of beds as the current number of beds was not enough.
The province’s health department head, Dr Keith Cloete, gave Ramaphosa a detailed breakdown of their Covid-19 strategy.
He said the Western Cape had a four-part strategy.
The first part was health system preparedness, then identifying hotspots and containing and mitigating spread of the disease by moving into communities to establish transmission rates. Lastly, focusing on and protecting the most vulnerable, those at high risk who have comorbidities or underlying conditions.
More testing would be done on people in hospitals, healthcare workers and those who are at high risk, Cloete added.
– news@citizen.co.za
It is better to overprovide than underprovide