Keep up the good work, Mr Gqobana

WHEN politicians make promises, it is quite usual for the public and media to adopt a cynical stance and a “we’ll believe it when we see it” attitude, especially where the Eastern Cape Health Department is concerned.

This department’s failure to deliver on its promises is well documented, and so it is encouraging to learn that Health MEC Sicelo Gqobana has in fact over-delivered on an undertaking he made three months ago today.

Gqobana had vowed personally to address the dire staff shortages at the city’s three main hospitals – Livingstone, Dora Nginza and Provincial. And the latest appointment figures for the Port Elizabeth Hospital Complex reveal he is doing exactly that and more.

Gqobana promised to appoint 47 doctors but has delivered 70 – and the eight radiographers the complex desperately needed are now already in their posts.

He yesterday also committed his department to an unprecedented recruitment drive throughout the province.

We hope this is the beginning of a turnaround for the embattled hospitals that have had to deal with such critical staff shortages that services to the public were drastically curtailed.

However, the question remains why doctors twice had to speak out about the staff shortages before the Health Department listened.

There was that spectacle last October when the department continued its halfhearted attempt to discipline the doctors for speaking out – but did nothing about the staff shortages.

Next we had highly-skilled, key staff resigning from the complex’s hospitals because of the work pressures created by the staff shortages. Still the department did nothing.

Doctors then published sky-high neo-natal death figures for the complex and still nothing happened.

When Gqobana finally intervened his action was swift and effective, but many will still wonder why it took this long for him to act.

We do hope that the new decisive action is indicative of a new state of mind in the provincial government – that the health of the people of the province must certainly enjoy top priority.