Angry health-care workers have blamed shortages of quality personal protective equipment (PPE) for the death of at least eight doctors from Covid-19 in Gauteng public hospitals last week.
The growing outrage among public sector health-care workers comes in the backdrop of an investigation into the massive multibillion-rand looting scandal of the Covid-19 fund allegedly by politically connected individuals.
Fears are that the deceased doctors contracted the disease when they worked without adequate protective gear while some were allegedly poor quality PPEs.
Among the medical practitioners who died on the front line last week were Dr Tokelo Ramakola, who was stationed at Jubilee District Hospital; Dr Duduzile Fakudze, who was working at George Mukhari Hospital in Ga-Rankuwa; Dr Nosipho Tebogo Taye from Leratong Hospital and Dr Jose Mwamba Tshiebwe, who was stationed at Helen Joseph Hospital in Rossmore.
Dr Mphadi Clive Mogajane, who was servicing Standerton Hospital, also died last week and was very active in sharing vital information about the pandemic.
Fakudze’s daughter, Tema Fakudze, who is studying medicine at Sefako Makgatho Health Sciences University (SMU), told The Star on Sunday that her mother died on Friday and that the family had to come to terms with her death.
“As much as she contracted coronavirus in the line of duty, we strongly believe that it was her time so we’ve accepted it,” she said.
The daughter said that the family was focused on giving the deceased anaesthesiologist a befitting burial despite the limited time because she was a Covid-19 patient.
“She had really young kids, her youngest is only six years old so as much as we told her mommy passed away, it hasn’t sunk in yet,” she said.
Several fellow colleagues have expressed their concerns about the growing death of doctors in hospitals owing to the shortage of PPE or bad quality gear that places their lives at risk.
The complaints came as Gauteng Health MEC Bandile Masuku and his wife, City of Joburg shared services MMC Loyiso Masuku, were asked to “step aside” along with President Cyril Ramaphosa’s spokesperson, Khusela Diko, over the R125million personal protective equipment tender which raised questions.
One specialist doctor who spoke to The Star on condition of anonymity said it was scary to go to work because they didn’t know if they would be the next person to be infected.
“Every day doctors and nurses die and nobody is saying anything about it. In some hospitals, the interns are given one mask and are told they must use it for the whole week,” she said.
The doctor said that the situation had made doctors reconsider their career choices even after they had specialised.
“Going to work, you’re literally surrendering your own lives.
“Everyone is anxious, everyone is depressed and it cannot go on like this,” she said.
An intern doctor who also asked not to be named said that health-care workers were running out of masks and that the quality of some was “extremely poor”.
“When you work in the Covid ward then they’ll give you proper masks but we don’t get proper masks in the normal wards.
“The problem with that is even in normal wards, lots of our patients tested positive,” she said.
“Lots of us bring our own masks from home because they are better than the ones they are giving us.”
Gauteng department of health spokesperson Kwara Kekana could only confirm that the department received a report that one doctor died at George Mukhari Academic Hospital last week.
“The doctor who died was an anaesthesiologist, the nature of the work compels them to prescribe PPE (whether there is COVID or not),” she said.
Kekana said that the Gauteng province currently had adequate PPE.
“Provincial warehouses and District warehouses are also in place so facilities can replenish various items of PPE from these warehouses,” she said.
She added that the department launched a 24-hour hotline in mid-April for workers to report any PPE concerns.
National Education, Health and Allied Workers Union (Nehawu) spokesperson Khaya Xaba said that the union believed that some health- care facilities were concealing the statistics of the frontline workers who tested positive or died from Covid-19.
“We do get reports or concerns from our members that people are dying and getting infected, but this doesn’t reflect on the stats and that’s why we’ve been calling for the fixing of district health,” he said.
National Department of Health spokesperson Popo Maja last month revealed to AFP that 13174 health workers had been infected by July 21.
At least 103 had died and 6 394 had recovered.
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