Airport hangars and stadiums to be used as quarantine sites

The Eastern Cape government plans to transform the old Mthatha Airport hangars, Buffalo City Stadium and a number of other state properties into isolation and quarantine sites.

This was revealed on Tuesday by provincial health head Dr Thobile Mbengashe during a two-day visit to the province by parliament’s health portfolio committee and the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) select committee on health.

The province is bracing itself for the Covid-19 pandemic’s peak, predicted for September.

The Eastern Cape also plans to build 500-bed field hospitals in each of its eight districts.

Speaking after the visit on Tuesday, committee chair Dr Sibongiseni Dhlomo said they were concerned about the province’s use of private quarantine sites and the provision of personal protective equipment.

The committees spent Monday and Tuesday visiting hospitals in the OR Tambo and Buffalo City metros, including Nelson Mandela Academic Hospital in Mthatha and Cecilia Makiwane Hospital in Mdantsane.

“The availability of PPE needs to improve.

“We cannot allow that health facilities have less than 75% of the needed PPE.”

On quarantine sites, Dhlomo said the use of private facilities was not viable and was problematic when medical equipment needed to be installed.

“These bed-and-breakfast facilities were not meant for hospitalisation,” Dhlomo said.

Mbengashe acknowledged that the province had a problem with PPE and a backlog with test results.

He said the province acknowledged that the use of bed-and-breakfasts was expensive and was working on building field hospitals in each district.

“Each district will have a 500-bed field hospital, with 100 beds set aside for serious Covid-19 cases or patients who need oxygen.

“Another 200 beds will be for isolation and quarantining,” Mbengashe said.

He could not say how much was spent on B&Bs.

“We are working with the department of public works in identifying other state properties that can be used as field hospitals.

“If that fails, we will use stadiums,” Mbengashe said.

The province needed 3,000 ICU beds on top of the isolation and quarantine beds.

Public works provincial spokesperson Vuyokazi Mbanjwa said the province had 168 quarantine facilities with 4,909 beds — 142 were private and 26 were public.

A mitigation and containment plan by Eastern Cape premier Oscar Mabuyane, presented to President Cyril Ramaphosa last month, showed the province had less than half the 2,481 isolation beds it needed.

Only 47 ICU and high-care beds were available, compared with the envisaged 155, and just 1,315 of the planned 2,626 general hospital beds were ready.

State hospitals in two of the province’s infection hotspots, Buffalo City and Nelson Mandela Bay, were desperately short of ICU and high-care beds.