Cradock Hospital has had its electricity cut due to the Eastern Cape Health Department’s non-payment of the ESKOM account. The non-payment of this account at the beginning of a new financial year is a disgrace and puts patients’ lives at huge risk.
No electricity means no electronic patient management records. No patient monitors and no surgeries in theatres. Patients with life-threatening conditions or who are having a difficult labour are at huge risk of losing their lives unnecessarily.
I will immediately write to the HOD, Dr Rolene Wagner, to ascertain the status quo regarding the payment of the Cradock electricity account and to establish whether any other hospitals in the province are facing a similar crisis. I will further urge that all outstanding electricity accounts be settled forthwith before further lives are put at risk.
The continued financial mismanagement and malfeasance of the senior management of the Eastern Cape Department of Health, coupled with their ongoing obsession with bloating senior management posts at the expense of nurses and doctors, has brought healthcare service delivery in this province to its knees.
Unless drastic steps are taken to reel in unnecessary expenditure on non-core programmes and to place the health of patients above the comfort of cadres, this department will not recover from the dire financial position it finds itself in.
The DA will continue to put forward workable proposals for the financial recovery of the Eastern Cape Health Department. However, their continued refusal to cut the fat and focus on their core responsibility will ultimately cost lives. We will fight for the lives of all patients in this province who deserve to live a life of dignity, which includes access to adequate healthcare.