The wards and corridors of Livingstone Hospital Complex in Gqeberha are hauntingly empty. In just two years, seventy-four doctors have left, including forty-one medical officers, fifteen registrars, and eighteen specialists. Those who remain shoulder an unbearable load while patients wait in fear and pain.
This outflow is no accident. It stems directly from the Eastern Cape Department of Health’s austerity drive, which freezes funded posts and diverts ring-fenced salaries to settle debts. The human cost is staggering. The Intensive Care Unit’s capacity has been reduced to fourteen beds, and exhausted clinicians work illegal overtime simply to keep the doors open after hours.
A chronic shortage of anaesthesiologists has slashed theatre activity by thirty per cent, lengthening every surgical waiting list. Oncology bookings have fallen from fifty to thirty a day, delaying life-saving treatment for cancer patients. Paediatric appointments have halved, leaving no doctor to cover general, emergency, or acute admissions, and undergraduate training is suffering as a result.
Orthopaedic theatres now operate at a fraction of their former capacity; ophthalmology patients wait two and a half years for a clinic appointment and up to two years for surgery, and some eye clinics have closed altogether. Emergency Department waiting times stretch to an unconscionable forty-eight to seventy-two hours; many patients die before being seen, and adverse events are multiplying as skeleton rosters fail to cope.
Nephrology appointments that once took a fortnight now take four months, an eternity for those with chronic kidney disease. In general medicine, key specialities such as gastroenterology, infectious diseases and endocrinology have vanished, and once-vital outreach programmes have been scrapped.
The crisis is compounded by an exodus of professional and enrolled nurses, whose dwindling numbers can no longer sustain safe care. Burnout leads to resignations, which in turn fuel burnout, and the vicious circle accelerates. Small wonder medico-legal claims have soared. Of the 1,652 claims filed nationally last year, a shocking 1,131 arose in this province.
Austerity was meant to rescue the department’s finances, yet the effect has been the opposite. Bloated bureaucracy, poor management and cadre deployment continue unchecked while front-line services collapse. Patients suffer and die, clinicians leave, and liability balloons.
I have written to the Minister of Health demanding urgent intervention. Every funded vacancy for doctors, specialist registrars and nurses must be filled without delay. Non-core functions, such as infrastructure, should be reverted to Public Works, and an independent forensic audit of the provincial head office must identify and eliminate administrative inefficiencies. District hospitals need proper staffing and equipment to relieve pressure on tertiary facilities like Livingstone, and the entire department should be placed under administration before further harm is done.
Healthcare staff are the beating heart of any hospital. Without them, bricks and mortar are merely walls that witness avoidable suffering. The people of the Eastern Cape have a constitutional right to adequate healthcare. That right is being violated daily. The time to act is now.