Staff crisis at New Brighton clinic
Province takes over Bay primary healthcare
AT the New Brighton Clinic, we have had a crisis of shortage of healthcare workers and support staff. The professional staffing levels at the clinic have been reduced dramatically from 28 to eight, because of provincialisation.
The eight staff have specialised training in the services areas of the clinic, such as ante-natal, TB, mother and child, HIV/Aids, family planning, etc. Anyone who understands about these services would know that no-one can just walk in from the street to do this work.
Nurses, sisters and doctors must be well trained, and regularly updated on the latest medicines and new treatment techniques. So why is it that the Department of Health has released professionals and replaced them with agency staff, who do not always have the level of experience and essential training, and knowing that the agency staff do not offer stability and consistency, since they are temporary?
It is disappointing to find out that, despite a special task team which was set up with the promise of addressing the staffing levels in recognition of the policy by the Department of Health to integrate services, after two months, instead of carrying out a promised analysis of the staffing needs, the Department of Health has decided to decrease the staff to seven and has made no progress in improving the delivery of services to patients.
The attitude seems to be that the staff are lazy and have time on their hands, when in fact they have developed an efficient way to process patients.
This system is putting patients at great risk to their lives because of the Department of Health claiming it has no resources. Even after the announcement of the release of the budget by national Treasury, there are no signs that this crisis is going to be addressed.
The Department of Health has suggested giving medication for longer periods to patients – with three monthly assessments – which does not address the issue of the number of patients to num- ber of staff ratio.
The same number of patients will be at the clinic with the seven staff, meaning the crisis remains and will worsen.
Is the Department of Health aware that whether patients are seen daily, weekly, bimonthly or whatever, the ratio of staff to patients is unacceptable.
It is meant to be 1:40, not 1:100-plus patients.
The New Brighton Clinic needs more professional sisters, nurses and doctors attached to it – not floating in and out and certainly not less. In fact in all area of staffing, including security, doctors, nurses and the cleaners, more staff are needed.
The Department of Health must provide the resources to increase the complement of staff to provide decent healthcare in black areas.
Black people are no longer dying because of apartheid but because of government negligence. Apartheid killed black people with guns openly, this government seems to have adopted a health policy that kills the black population discreetly.
There really is no difference, especially when you consider the number of funerals per week in black areas.