The Democratic Alliance (DA) has called on the MEC of Health to urgently address infrastructure maintenance at health facilities after yet another breakdown of the Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) system at Dr Harry Surtie hospital in Upington aggravates the growing surgery backlog in the Northern Cape.
Recent councillor visits to the hospital confirm that the HVAC system has been out of order for more than two weeks. Surgery, to repair the broken femur of a patient who was involved in a serious motor vehicle accident, is on hold because of infection control risks due to the inability to regulate the temperature in theatre. She is one of thousands of patients on the surgery waiting list, which climbed to over 8000 last year.
Patients recuperating in wards are also made to suffer in unbearably hot and uncomfortable conditions, posing further health and safety risks to patients and staff.
The latest breakdown is a culmination of a lack of routine maintenance, like cleaning the filters, coupled with the absence or failure of dedicated personnel to immediately attend to matters like tripped switches.
The DA raised similar concerns for the past two consecutive years, yet maintenance issues at Dr Harry Surtie and other facilities, like the Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe Hospital in Kimberley, remain unresolved. This is despite a past commitment that the department was busy appointing a maintenance contractor.
I have again reported my concerns to the MEC of Health, Maruping Lekwene, and was reassured that repairs at Dr Harry Surtie are underway. Ad hoc repairs, however, will not prevent future disruptions to health care.
The DA has therefore also appealed to the department to ensure that its new budget makes provision for the appointment of skilled infrastructure maintenance teams, who must be held accountable for ensuring continuous and routine maintenance at facilities. The department must also ensure that hospitals have funded infrastructure plans to be able to quickly respond to HVAC breakdowns and prevent critical infrastructure from falling into a state of decay.