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General view of nurses in a hospital ward.
- The deputy public protector, defender Kholeka Gcaleka, described a serious shortage of PPE and staff in 17 public hospitals in South Africa.
- A report compiled by the Office of the Public Protector describes the serious difficulties facing the health sector.
- In some cases, healthcare workers had to wear broken PPE due to a shortage.
Front-line workers battling Covid-19 in severely affected provinces in the public health sector are some of the most exposed to the disease due to a shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE), causing some nurses wear broken equipment, deputy public protector, attorney Kholeka Gcaleka said Monday.
“Hospitals did not have enough PPE. In some hospitals, staff have to wear PPE throughout the day. Only physicians received full PPE and not all staff members,” were some of the findings.
He said the report came after his office embarked on blitzkrieg inspections at various public health facilities across the country.
The inspection included hospitals in Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga, Eastern Cape and Limpopo, covering 17 public hospitals.
Some of the main problems that arose were those related to the PPE and the state of the facilities, among others.
He said the PPE problems included the fact that some wards in these hospitals did not have the proper PPE.
“The PPE masks are reused. They are acquired and [there are] Incorrect sizes of EPP. There is inadequate protection for healthcare workers and other staff due to lack of PPE. Nurses are only allowed one bodysuit per day. “
Gcaleka said that some of the PPEs were also the wrong sizes “which breaks immediately”.
“Nurses are forced to wear overalls even if they are broken, which puts their health at risk. The PPE purchased does not meet specifications and is deficient. Stock levels of PPE in the warehouse where the PPE is collected are very high. low”.
He said there was also a non-delivery of the PPE purchased from the designated service provider that was in the provincial database.
“At some point, substandard PPE was delivered to the hospitals because the gowns were not sterile and did not match the compliment of the staff.”
He said there were also a shortage of thermometers, disposable containers, decanters and oxygen points.
Gcaleka said there was also a “chronic shortage of nursing staff and a lack of professional nurses to optimally staff areas.”
“The workload for physicians was too high. Doctors are often expected to work excessive hours as a result of a shortage of clinical staff.”
He said detailed reports of what each hospital needed to do to improve would be uploaded to its website.
“There are countless interventions that we propose regarding each of the facilities to address the various problems identified. They are both short and medium term. I’m not going to go into the details of each one, suffice it to say that we seek to remedy the challenges that we have collected. “
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