- Staff and patients at a TB hospital in the Eastern Cape fear they are in danger that the hospital's walls and roofs will collapse on them.
- The hospital's kitchen and pantry have leaking roofs and buckets have been placed strategically in the storage room to prevent food from being damaged by rain.
- Workmanship at Ward G, the newly renovated Covid-19 ward, is so badly done that the project should never have been signed off.
The Orsmond TB Hospital in Kariega, formerly Uitenhage, has been allowed to degenerate into a state of disrepair with huge cracks lining the walls and massive gaps all over the facility, while staff fear the structure may soon cave in on them.
The DA recently held an oversight visit at the hospital and found the facility was not suitable to house patients or staff.
According to DA MPL Jane Cowley and colleague Marshall von Buchernroder, patients at the hospital feared for their lives not because of the deadly disease they were fighting against, but because of the appalling state of the facilities they were housed in.
The pair said the X-ray unit, which houses expensive machinery, had huge cracks across the walls and over the doors, while huge gaps in the multi-drug resistant unit were so big it had to be plugged and filled with wire.
Cowley said they found several sections at the facility in such a bad state of repair that it should be condemned but due to space shortages they were still in use.
The structural decay was so extensive that staff and patients were in danger of having walls and roofs collapsing on them, she added.
- Ward G, which is the newly renovated Covid-19 and patients under investigation ward, is so badly finished off, that the project should not have been signed off in the first place.
- The bathrooms do not cater for disabled patients and finishes such as skirting boards and tiling are poorly executed.
- The kitchen and pantry have leaking roofs and buckets have been placed strategically in the storage room to prevent food from being spoiled or damaged due to rain.
- The conditions under which the healthcare workers and other staff work at this hospital are untenable.
Cowley said not only do staff have to deal with highly contagious and deadly diseases on a daily basis, but they also faced the constant threat of the buildings collapsing on them.
She promised to write to Health MEC Nomakosazana Meth to ascertain who signed off on the contract to upgrade G ward.
Cowley added she would also try to establish whether plans were in place to demolish the existing building and rebuild it, or to move the staff and patients to alternative, structurally safe premises.
According to her:Using the Western Cape as an example, Cowley said such conditions would never be tolerated in the DA-led province.
"Renovations would have been properly monitored and shabby workmanship would not have been signed off on. This is because the Democratic Alliance gets things done properly," she added.
Eastern Cape health department spokesperson Sizwe Kupelo said: "The walls in one section are cracked due to clay soil, where the structure was built."
He added the section housed 25 patients and the department was engaging with labour to turn that particular section into an office space.
The National Health, Education and Allied Workers' Union could not be reached for comment. Its response will be added once received.