New boss is a medic, manager
Perez believes he can turn hospital around
MTHATHA General Hospital’s latest chief executive officer has vowed to change the fortunes of the troubled hospital in just under two years – starting by improving patients’ experience and by reducing the number of people dying there.
Less than two weeks after assuming his new position, 49-year-old Dr Giovanni Mario Perez, who was born in District Six in Cape Town, said he believed the hospital could perform better.
“I wouldn’t have taken this job if I believed the situation could not be turned around,” he said.
“I am a doctor but also a manager, so I am also here to add value particularly in the area of management.”
Perez, who qualified as medical doctor at the University of Cape Town in 1986, has also worked at the world-renowned Groote Schuur Hospital and at the Somerset Hospital.
He is no stranger to the Eastern Cape, having done volunteer work at the St Elizabeth Hospital in Lusikisiki while still studying in 1984.
His mother was born in the Transkei and Perez fondly remembers taking bus trips to the area every December holiday while growing up.
“I owed it to the people of this province to come and work here. But more than anything, my mother has been pestering me to come and work in Transkei for many years,” he said.
Among the challenges he cited were the poor infrastructure at Mthatha General Hospital, low morale among the staff stemming from a heavy workload, poor planning and under-utilisation of the present systems.
The situation was worsened by the fact the hospital shared resources with Bedford and the “rich and well resourced” Nelson Mandela Academic Hospital (NMAH).
“At the moment we are like conjoined triplets. If you do surgery on one of the triplets you might disrupt everybody,” added Perez.
He said the idea was to assess the resources of the three hospitals as part of the Mthatha Hospital complex and share them evenly.
But his immediate focus was on decongesting the hospital’s overcrowded casualty section.
In the next two years, his goals include reducing infant mortality and bringing down the number of older people dying in the hospital.
The hospital has been plagued by all sorts of challenges in the past including deaths, allegedly due to a lack of care, something which earned it the moniker of “hospital of death”.
“These [negative perceptions] bother me a lot. But changing the reality on the ground first will go a long way towards dispelling those perceptions,” he said.
Meanwhile, Eastern Cape provincial health spokesman Sizwe Kupelo said the national department was in the process of taking over the running of NMAH and would appoint a permanent CEO soon.
The Dispatch reported last month the hospital, together with seven other academic hospitals in the country, would no longer fall under the provincial health departments but would be managed by the higher education department. — sikhon@dispatch.co.za