{"id":11837,"date":"2012-06-26T11:55:44","date_gmt":"2012-06-26T09:55:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/06\/80-of-sas-population-serviced-by-18-of-sas-doctors\/"},"modified":"2012-06-26T11:55:44","modified_gmt":"2012-06-26T09:55:44","slug":"80-of-sas-population-serviced-by-18-of-sas-doctors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/80-of-sas-population-serviced-by-18-of-sas-doctors\/","title":{"rendered":"80% of SA\u2019s Population Serviced by 18% of SA\u2019s Doctors"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t<!-- Start Shareaholic LikeButtonSetTop Automatic --><!-- End Shareaholic LikeButtonSetTop Automatic --><\/p>\n<p>Amidst dire warnings from the Clinical Heads of Units (CHUs) of specialist departments at Dora Nginza, Livingstone and Provincial hospitals yesterday (<em>See: <a title=\"East Cape Doctors draw the line in the sand with Health Department\" href=\"http:\/\/mype.co.za\/new\/2012\/06\/east-cape-doctors-draw-the-line-in-the-sand-with-health-department\/\" target=\"_blank\">East Cape Doctors draw the line in the sand with Health Department<\/a><\/em>) some sobering facts around the pitiful state of our Department of Health emerged some of which would, in a normal business, send dire warnings to sharholders to bail with extreme prejudice:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Asof 1 July the casualty department at Dora Nginza will stop running if no staff are appointed immediately.<\/li>\n<li>There is already a one year waiting list for paediatric patients requiring surgery.<\/li>\n<li>South Africa has only 37000 doctors, 12000 of which are specialists.<\/li>\n<li>80% of those 37000 service 18% of South Africa\u2019s population of 50 586 757 (July 2011, Stats SA) via private medical aid schemes.<\/li>\n<li>7 400 doctors work in state hospitals servicing 41 481 140 citizens \u2013 a ratio of 1 doctor per 5 605 persons.<\/li>\n<li>In the private sector the ratio is one doctor per 310 persons.<\/li>\n<li>The East Cape CHU\u2019s estimate that they are operating at 70% of the required staff complement.<\/li>\n<li>East Cape Health Admin staff numbers are estimated to have increased by 130%.<\/li>\n<li>Over the same period the number of new doctors appointed is estimated at 8%.<\/li>\n<li>Over the same period the number of new nursing staff appointed is estimated at 1%.<\/li>\n<li>On certain days of the month there will be NO staff on duty who are able to do emergency surgery.<\/li>\n<li>Many so called departments consist of only ONE specialist and no other staff<\/li>\n<li>The Health Department spends money on new facilities which then go to rot as no staff are appointed to run them.<\/li>\n<li>Doctors expressing a willingness to work in the State Health Care system wait upwards of six months before being told that there is no money to employ them.<\/li>\n<li>Health Care professionals offered to give up their Overtime allowances in order to free up money and were refused.<\/li>\n<li>Amidst dire warnings that R900 Billion needs to be spent on Health, the department is still throttling back on spending.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Some of the words of despair from the health professionals:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cNever ever have we been found with the situation where we can only do non-elective services.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cThis situation has been brought about by administrators and not doctors.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cWe simply do not have the staff.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cIn an elective situation the surgeon is held responsible, not the administrator. It is simply unsafe to work in these conditions.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cIt is time for the public to reclaim the health department.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cDuring apartheid we were the 2nd best province for health care.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cEverything stops at Treasury amnd we are told that there is no money.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cIt is physically impossible to attend to all the patients without staff.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cLocal management says that their hands are tied.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cMoney has been taken from research fund allocations to provide normal service.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cIt\u2019s a very dismal situation.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cThe Health Department shows a distinct lack of consultation and transparency.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cIf the \u2018money tap\u2019 is opened now it could take upwards of five years to normalise the situation.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Asked what they had done to solve the situation the CHUs said that they had formally approached their direct superiors in the local department and received no feedback. This they had escalated to the Premier Noxolo Kiviet who had said the matter was being attended to. Then they escalated the matter to National treasury who had responded that the matter was \u201creceiving attention.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Clinical Heads of Units (CHUs) of specialist departments at Dora Nginza, Livingstone and Provincial hospitals have now given notice that asof 1 July 2012 they will only perform emergency surgery as a first priority until such time as the current staffing crisis is addressed.<\/p>\n<p><!-- Start Shareaholic LikeButtonSetBottom Automatic --><!-- End Shareaholic LikeButtonSetBottom Automatic -->\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Amidst dire warnings from the Clinical Heads of Units (CHUs) of specialist departments at Dora Nginza, Livingstone and Provincial hospitals yesterday (See: East Cape Doctors draw the line in the sand with Health Department) some sobering facts around the pitiful state of our Department of Health emerged some of which would, in a normal business, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[1289,5],"class_list":{"0":"post-11837","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-mype","8":"tag-port-elizabeth-2","9":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11837"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11837\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}