The Democratic Alliance (DA) has asked the Northern Cape Provincial Legislature’s health portfolio committee to convene urgently as a growing financial crisis, marked by the non-payment of health care workers, spills over into the districts.
Today, health personnel of the Connie Vorster Hospital in Hartswater, including emergency medical services (EMS) staff members, downed tools in protest of the deteriorating conditions under which they are expected to work. The protest comes after a three-week go-slow failed to secure a departmental intervention.
Personnel at Connie Vorster Hospital have not received overtime allowances for time worked on weekends, public holidays and night duty, since March. The situation mimics the non-payment of sessional doctors in places like Warrenton, and outstanding overtime allowances dating back to August, at the Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe Hospital in Kimberley.
Aside from the gross violation of their employment contracts, the Connie Vorster Hospital is seriously understaffed. With only 16 nurses employed at this district hospital, at times, there are only two sisters on night shift. Patients wait up to five hours for their files to be traced, without seeing a doctor. Sick patients lie unattended for hours. Toilets are blocked and the hospital is dirty. Patients complain of going hungry. Mentally ill patients are also not kept in a separate, supervised ward, posing a further threat to staff and patients.
Despite MEC Maruping Lekwene being made aware of the health workers’ plight at an event last week, he remains tone deaf to the challenges faced by health care personnel. Instead of treating the escalating crisis at Dr Connie Vorster as a priority, showing that he truly values our frontline health care workers, he spent the weekend campaigning for the upcoming Ward 1 by-election in Sol Plaatje.
The DA has submitted a written request to the health portfolio chairperson, detailing our concerns and asking for a meeting to be scheduled with the provincial department and provincial treasury, as soon as possible. Health care workers are already waging a war on disease, injuries and ill health. They should not also have to fight the ANC-led provincial government for decent working conditions and quality healthcare provision.