{"id":229741,"date":"2022-06-24T21:26:06","date_gmt":"2022-06-24T19:26:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/article\/fort-beaufort-provincial-hospital-deemed-to-be-a-health-hazard\/"},"modified":"2022-06-24T21:26:06","modified_gmt":"2022-06-24T19:26:06","slug":"fort-beaufort-provincial-hospital-is-a-health-hazard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/fort-beaufort-provincial-hospital-is-a-health-hazard\/","title":{"rendered":"Fort Beaufort Provincial Hospital is a health hazard"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"article_body\">\n<p><a class=\"bigger-image\" href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/media\/uploads\/images\/photographers\/Mkhuseli%20Sizani\/fortb_hospital4.jpeg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/fort-beaufort-provincial-hospital-is-a-health-hazard.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\">A large section of Fort Beaufort Provincial Hospital has been deemed to be a health hazard. Photos: Mkhuseli Sizani<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<p class=\"intro\">Fort Beaufort Provincial Hospital was already dilapidated before it suffered storm damage last year in December.<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt class=\"leave\" height=\"1\" id=\"gu_counter\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/fort-beaufort-provincial-hospital-is-a-health-hazard.gif\" width=\"1\"><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p class=\"intro\">The department has been aware of the condition of the hospital since 2018, but says it has not had the R350-million needed to a full refurbishment.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p class=\"intro\">The storm damage had still not been repaired when we visited last week.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p class=\"intro\">Last month, Department of Labour inspectors shut down 13 wards deemed to be a health hazard according to a hospital manager who spoke on condition of anonymity.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>A large section of Fort Beaufort Provincial Hospital has been shut down by the Eastern Cape Department of Labour which has deemed 13 wards to be a health hazard.<\/p>\n<p>A hospital manager told GroundUp, \u201cWe are scared our hospital might be shut down \u2026 On 10 June the Department of Labour inspectors shut down 13 male wards in block 2 and deemed them a health hazard. Now the patients have been moved to block 5, which was used to admit Covid patients.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMany wards, including the maternity ward, have leaking roofs because of the 13 December storm.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn 2018 we were promised that our hospital would be rebuilt. Also, according to our organogram we should have ten groundsmen, but we only have two. Also we need 12 porters, but we only have two.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOld files are dumped in broken rooms. Both male and female patients share the toilets. Taps are leaking and the place is always wet.<\/p>\n<p>\u201dAnother manager said, \u201cI am worried that if the department does not urgently fix this hospital it is going to shut down and our people will be forced to go to Alice and to East London.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis used to be one of the best hospitals \u2026 But since the democratic government took over, our hospital has become filthy and a place of negligence.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"bigger-image\" href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/media\/uploads\/images\/photographers\/Mkhuseli%20Sizani\/fortb_hospital.jpeg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/fort-beaufort-provincial-hospital-is-a-health-hazard-1.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\">Furniture has been dumped outside on the hospital grounds in various places.<\/p>\n<p>GroundUp visited the hospital last week. The wards and toilets were filthy. Animals grazed on the unmaintained grounds. The building is dilapidated, windows are broken and the roof has not been repaired since it was damaged by a storm in December. Old patient files are dumped in an unused outbuilding.<\/p>\n<p>Patients in the casualty section have little privacy. There is no internal corridor connecting casualty to the wards, so patients have to be wheeled outside in chairs or on stretchers, no matter the weather, to be transferred to the wards.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe wait for many hours at casualty before we are attended to,\u201d a patient complained to GroundUp. \u201cI really don\u2019t understand why a big hospital has a shortage of staff and blankets. If you are admitted the nurses tell you that you should bring your own blankets.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A former nurse at the hospital said, \u201cShortage of staff and linen has been a crisis for more than ten years there.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A clerk said, \u201cWe don\u2019t have filing cabinets. Patients\u2019 folders are lying all over the place. On wet days we have to put buckets out for leaks and move around the old furniture we use.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"bigger-image\" href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/media\/uploads\/images\/photographers\/Mkhuseli%20Sizani\/fortb_hospital2.jpeg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/fort-beaufort-provincial-hospital-is-a-health-hazard-2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\">Patient files dumped in an unused building.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe wards, not the whole hospital, were issued with a probation notice, in terms of the Occupational Health and Safety Act 85 of 1993,\u201d said Yonela Dekeda, provincial health spokesperson.<\/p>\n<p>She said the department was busy repairing the storm damage and there was a contractor on site replacing asbestos roofing throughout the 13 wards and fixing leaking roof sheets, damaged ceilings, and broken windows.<\/p>\n<p>She said the department was aware of the \u201cinfrastructure issues\u201d at Fort Beaufort Hospital. An assessment was done in 2017\/18 which recommended a major overhaul. A master plan to fix the hospital was signed in 2018. The refurbishment cost was estimated to be R350-million.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe department did not have funds to implement the project in its entirety. The department opted to phase the project and start an upgrade to the perimeter fence and guardhouse to ensure safety and security of both patients and staff. This phase has been completed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe second phase is planned to concentrate on plumbing (including ablutions), painting, vinyl floor covering. The project is in an advanced stage of implementation and a contractor is expected to be on site before the end of the second quarter of the financial year.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Dekeda said male and female patients were not sharing toilets as reported and there was no shortage of linen.<\/p>\n<p>As for staff shortages, this was \u201cbeing addressed through the implementation of the current approved Annual Recruitment Process\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>The provincial Department of Labour has not responded to our questions since Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"bigger-image\" href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/media\/uploads\/images\/photographers\/Mkhuseli%20Sizani\/fortb_hospital3.jpeg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/fort-beaufort-provincial-hospital-is-a-health-hazard-3.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\">A toilet at Fort Beaufort Hospital.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div id=\"article_copyright\">\n<p>\u00a9 2022 GroundUp. This article is licensed under a <a href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nd\/4.0\/\" rel=\"license\">Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>You may republish this article, so long as you credit the authors and GroundUp, and do not change the text. Please include a link back to the original article.<\/p>\n<p>We put an invisible pixel in the article so that we can count traffic to republishers. All analytics tools are solely on our servers. We do not give our logs to any third party. Logs are deleted after two weeks. We do not use any IP address identifying information except to count regional traffic. We are solely interested in counting hits, <b>not tracking<\/b> users. If you republish, please do not delete the invisible pixel.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/fort-beaufort-provincial-hospital-is-a-health-hazard.jpg\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/\">Source: GroundUp<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A large section of Fort Beaufort Provincial Hospital has been deemed to be a health hazard. Photos: Mkhuseli Sizani Fort Beaufort Provincial Hospital was already dilapidated before it suffered storm damage last year in December. The department has been aware of the condition of the hospital since 2018, but says it has not had the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":229742,"comment_status":"closed","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":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9928],"tags":[28001],"class_list":{"0":"post-229741","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-groundup","8":"tag-groundup","9":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/fort-beaufort-provincial-hospital-is-a-health-hazard.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229741","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=229741"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229741\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/229742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}