Recent photographs of broken windows, boarded doors, and makeshift repairs at Cradock Hospital have exposed the ongoing infrastructure decay in Eastern Cape public hospitals.
Patients should not be expected to recover in facilities where basic maintenance has been allowed to collapse. Broken windows, unsafe entrances, damaged buildings, and poorly maintained wards compromise patient dignity, undermine staff morale, and place further strain on an already overburdened health system.
The Democratic Alliance has submitted parliamentary questions to the Eastern Cape MEC for Health, Ntandokazi Capa, to establish how much funding has been allocated under the Infrastructure Programme for urgent repairs at Cradock Hospital, and what timeframes have been set for the completion of these repairs.
Cradock Hospital is one example of a much wider failure. Across the province, public hospitals continue to suffer from collapsing infrastructure and failing basic services.
The Infrastructure Programme within the Eastern Cape Department of Health has repeatedly failed to deliver the maintenance, planning, procurement discipline, and consequence management required to keep health facilities safe and functional.
Despite this, the Infrastructure Programme received a substantial budget increase in the current financial year, while critical frontline programmes such as District Health Services and Hospital Services faced budget cuts.
This raises serious questions about the Department’s priorities. Funding cannot continue to be channelled into a programme that fails to maintain hospitals, while services directly linked to patient care are placed under further pressure.
The Department of Health must focus its resources and leadership on its core mandate of providing adequate, accessible, and effective health services. Where infrastructure functions are failing within the Department, the MEC must account for why these functions remain there rather than being placed where they can be properly managed and monitored.
Patients in the Eastern Cape deserve hospitals that support their recovery. They deserve wards with proper windows, bathrooms with working toilets, lifts that function, and buildings that are safe for patients, staff, and visitors.