West Coast hospitals show resilience despite challenges

Dear Editor

Following the Western Cape Parliamentary Oversight Visits this week, the Standing Committee on Health was able to see how resilience has characterised the response of health facilities along the West Coast in the face of the mounting pressures. We witnessed how staff members – despite facing various issues including natural disasters, theft, vandalism and Covid-19 – were still able to attend to patients to the best of their abilities.

However, during the oversight visits, there were some facilities which we believe need increased capacity and improved service levels. For this reason, the Standing Committee will be inviting the Departments of Health, Social Development and Community Safety to brief the committee on the progress being made. Health is everyone’s business and requires a whole-of-society approach.

We do welcome the identification and approval of a new Community Day Centre in Vredenburg which will assist in alleviating some of the pressure on the Hanna Coetzee Clinic to support the healthcare needs of the growing community.

For example, we have seen how the legacy of natural disasters can have on service delivery. In 2017, the Swartland Hospital had 60% of its capacity destroyed by a fire which prevented it from carrying out various critical services. Due to this constraint, most of the healthcare services were transferred to the neighbouring facilities, namely Paarl, Wesfleur (in Atlantis) and Radie Kotze (in Piketberg) hospitals. Whilst more than 90% of the capacity of the Swartland Hospital has since been restored, recent roof repairs required transfers to once again take place to Radie Kotze and LAPA Munnik Hospitals.

Despite being credited as a small “deep rural” hospital, the Radie Kotze hospital and its staff go above and beyond to try to provide the same services as a fully-fledged district hospital. With Covid-19 pressures also taking up available capacity, services such as obstetrics and surgical care cannot be offered at this stage.

Even though there are many challenges being faced, there has been welcomed progress in stabilising service delivery. We have seen the immense resilience of healthcare workers here on the West Coast and would thank each and every one for their continued hard work particularly over the last two years.

Regards

Wendy Kaizer-Philander, MPP
DA Western Cape Spokesperson on Health

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