Cath lab up and running at Mthatha hospital
It is the only operational cath lab in state service in the province
The cath lab at Mthatha’s Nelson Mandela Academic Hospital is now the only functioning one at state hospitals in the province.
After years of strife, key staffing positions have finally been filled. Not only does this mean patients from rural areas will be able to make use of the facility, but patients from all over the Eastern Cape will also no longer have to make the expensive journey to Cape Town for procedures.
A cath lab performs non-invasive procedures to fit stents to open blocked arteries, fix arteries and congenital heart defects and some vascular procedures.
Speaking to the Daily Dispatch on Thursday, when the Nelson Mandela Academic Hospital’s first cath lab patients were treated, unit head and cardiologist Dr Khulile Moeketsi said it was a battle to recruit staff to work in Mthatha because they would rather work in big cities.
“But we have managed to recruit a strong team who are all truly experienced in the cath lab. We have myself, an adult cardiologist, a paediatric cardiologist and two cath lab nurses with more than 10 years’ experience, which is really valuable. We also have a cath lab technologist,” said Moeketsi.
He said they had already done three procedures on three different patients.
One patient suffered a heart attack, but the second patient was a cardiac emergency who needed a permanent pacemaker. “She had a heart block and she came in with multiple episodes of blacking out. A heart block is dangerous, it’s a cardiac emergency. If you do not put in a pacemaker that patient will die and that is why she was up on the list,” said Moeketsi.
The third patient had fluid around the heart, compressing the organ and preventing cardiac functioning.
“If you do not treat that problem, with time the heart becomes unable to relax and those patients also die.
“But thanks to a state-of-theart cath lab and the highly qualified staff, we were able to drain the fluid and they are all doing well.”
Hospital CEO Nomalanga Makwedini said they were delighted to finally be managing people’s cardiac ailments.
They were already in agreement with sister hospitals in the province that once the hospital’s backlog had been cleared they could start seeing patients from those facilities.
While equipment arrived at Port Elizabeth’s Provincial Hospital in March, it is not yet operational.
This is because the space where the laboratory is to be set up needs some work to make it suitable for the equipment.
In late May, it was reported that construction on the lab had not begun because the provincial Treasury needed to approve the plans before a contractor could start building.