'Things Are Falling Apart'

Lack of funding and equipment, grossly overworked staff and overwhelming numbers - this is the grave state of public healthcare in SA

- By Roxanne Mooneys

DOCTORS performing complex procedures by the light of their cellphones. Broken equipment in the neonatal unit. Taps that have run dry in a place where proper hygiene could be the difference between life and death.

Day after day these are the conditions that staff at Rahima Moosa Mother and Child Hospital in Johannesburg have had to endure - and pediatrician Dr. Tim de Maayer has had enough of it.

Children are dying and the horrendous conditions in our public hospitals are contributing to their deaths, he wrote in an open letter to his bosses that painted a shocking picture of the sad state of the hospital and others like it in SA's public health system.

The brutal honesty of the letter, which was originally published on the Daily Maverick website, takes your breath away. He challenges health officials to visit his unit to witness first-hand how doctors struggle to intubate and keep babies warm by their mobile phone's torch, as the power has failed... again.

Having worked in the public sector for 21 years, I can tell you frankly: things are falling apart. If your healthcare workers are the centre of providing care, we cannot hold. Things are going backward, fast.

How do you manage to come to work every day, fail at your job of ensuring basic healthcare for the people you serve, and still sleep at night? he asks.

In response, the department suspended De Maayer, saying in a short statement that any problems in Gauteng public hospitals are due to an influx of hundreds of thousands of patients from other provinces and even neighbouring countries.

The public outcry was so intense that his suspension was swiftly overturned. Yet at the time of going to print, De Maayer was unable to speak to the media and it was still unclear if he would be facing disciplinary action.