Mpumalanga hospital’s medical-waste shame
‘Sinking’ mortuary and decaying infrastructure among problems
MEDICAL waste dumped in a room near the children’s wards and a “sinking” mortuary are among the flaws at two hospitals in rural Mpumalanga.
Yet another hospital in the province was built with asbestos, its roof now rusty and leaking, its walls cracking.
The waste at the Tintswalo Hospital in Acornhoek includes expired medicines, discarded syringes, needles, bandages and intravenous drip bags.
The “sinking” mortuary was referred to in a report on the state of Mapulaneng Hospital, just 40km from Acornhoek, compiled by the province’s former health MEC, Candice Mashego-Dlamini.
At Tintswalo, a storage room near the paediatric section was unlocked and the door wide open during the Sunday Times’s visit.
In a room that houses the hospital’s boiler and incinerator there were used syringes, face masks and medical pads strewn across surfaces. Medical waste in red bags as well as needles, syringes and vials lay in yellow buckets, many of them not sealed.
Old refrigerator trays, once used to store bodies in the mortuary, lay close to the building.
An artisan working at Tintswalo Hospital said: “If something is vandalised or broken, it takes forever to be replaced. Although I work at the hospital, I wouldn’t like to be admitted as a patient there.”
At Mapulaneng Hospital, pregnant women have to sit on hard benches for hours — even days — while waiting to go into labour. The facility does not have a maternity ward waiting room.
In a 70-page “investigative report” signed in April, MashegoDlamini said Tintswalo’s infrastructure was “dilapidated” and wards were “overcrowded”.
She said the infrastructure at Mapulaneng “is in a complete state of collapse”.
Mashego-Dlamini observed that the mortuary was “sinking”. The Sunday Times team found walls in the mortuary in a state of collapse. Huge cracks were vis- ible on the walls.
Mashego-Dlamini’s report was submitted to the South African Human Rights Commission in response to its investigation into healthcare in the province.
The commission based its report on visits to three other hospitals, including the Bernice Samuel Hospital in Delmas, where maternity patients were found lying on the floor in a passage.
The provincial health department said Tintswalo and Mapulaneng were among five hospitals that would be demolished and rebuilt for about R2.5-bil-
She visited several hospitals where she found ‘poor and dilapidated infrastructure’
lion. The others are Sabie, Lydenburg and Bethal hospitals.
According to Mashego-Dlamini’s report, there was no budget for these projects between now and March 2017.
Mashego-Dlamini said upgrades and new capital projects over the next three financial years would amount to R2.4billion, but that only R419.4-million was available.
At least R890-million was needed to demolish and rebuild Bethal Hospital, but only R16.7million was available between now and March 2017. MashegoDlamini’s report said the Bethal Hospital was “extremely dilapidated; it is built with asbestos”.
“The roof is rusty and leaking and the walls are cracking. The paint is peeling off.”
Mpumalanga’s new health MEC, Gillion Mashego, recently visited several hospitals in the province where he found “poor and dilapidated infrastructure”.
This week, at Rob Ferreira Hospital in Mbombela (Nelspruit), a man reportedly had to carry his elderly relative’s body down four flights of stairs to an undertaker’s vehicle because the lifts were not working.
Hamilton Thobakgale of the DA in Bushbuckridge called on the Ministry of Health to urgently intervene. “It’s not only Tintswalo that is in a bad state, but most other hospitals that cannot perform their primary functions. But I am appalled by the state of Tintswalo Hospital,” said Thobakgale.
A nurse at Mapulaneng Hospital said pregnant women slept on “pieces of sponge” at night because of the shortage of beds.
“We have two new delivery beds, but three others are not functioning very well,” she said.
The Mpumalanga health department said the stock of expired medicine at Tintswalo Hospital was due to be destroyed.
“This will be done once approval has been granted.”
The department said medical waste stored in the boiler room was to be burnt in the incinerator and that the old refrigerator trays were being stored on the hospital premises because of a lack of storage space for old equipment.
The department said the problematic condition of the mortuary at Mapulaneng “has been prioritised and is receiving attention”.
It also confirmed that Mapulaneng did not have waiting rooms for maternity patients.
“The labour wards admit women who are in labour only,” said a department statement.