Gauteng’s second round of surgical marathons a big success
THE Gauteng Health Department performed 358 more surgical procedures on Tuesday across its facilities in the second round of what it calls “surgical marathons”.
During Mandela Day, the department carried out nearly 730 surgeries in 32 hospitals across the province.
In its second round of the surgical marathons, the department had targeted 300 surgeries, but exceeded the number across 23 public health facilities, according to department spokesperson Motalatale Modiba.
He said that the procedures included arthroplasty, inguinal hernia repair, laparoscopic cholecystectomy, replacement of obturator post-hemi maxillectomy, varicocelectomy, Bartholin Cystectomy, umbilical incisional hernia and scoliosis, among others.
Project co-ordinator Dr Ntabiseng Makgana said the department’s plan was to carry out these marathons on a monthly basis.
She said: “We are doing surgical marathons to actively make sure that patients are having surgeries,” Makgana said.
She said from December 2022 to January this year, the department was sitting at 32 000 and was now closing in to halving the waiting list.
“When we say surgical marathons, we mean that health establishments do surgeries on a day-to-day-basis, so when we do a marathon, we are going above and beyond what we are used to.
“For example, if an institution is able to do 20 surgeries in a day, which would be their capacity, then they would say to themselves to push a little more and maybe add five more on the marathon day.
“The surgical marathon is not only about reducing the backlog faced by the health facilities across the province, but also about building capacity and skills transfer among health practitioners,” she said.
Among one of the successful surgeries was a one-year-eight months toddler who underwent cleft lip and cleft palate surgery at Steve Biko Academic Hospital in Tshwane.
According to Modiba, cleft palate is a common birth condition where the roof of the mouth does not join properly during birth.
“While cleft lip is a birth condition where the tissue that makes up the lip does not join completely before birth, this abnormality affects speaking and feeding. However, this critical surgery restores normal function with minimal scarring,” Modiba said.
The toddler will also grow up with the support of speech and language therapists accessible across Gauteng hospitals.
Gauteng hospitals will also continue to employ “surgical blitz” on weekends as an ongoing strategy to reduce waiting times for patients.
MEC for Health and Wellness Nomantu Nkomo-Ralehoko encouraged health officials to continue with the surgical marathons.
“I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to the clinicians and their respective teams. We are truly grateful for the many teams in our hospitals who continue to break boundaries and are committed to the course we started on Nelson Mandela Day this year with our intense surgical marathons.
“All our teams, which include specialists, registrars, medical officers, scrub nurses and other support staff, are vital in making these operations a success,” she said.