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A reply to a DA parliamentary question  received from Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi reveals that there is no specified ideal level of resources for hospital equipment and medical supplies.

This is unacceptable as acute hospital equipment and medical supply shortages around the country are endangering the lives of patients.

A report in the Sowetan today confirms that a nine-hospital tour in Mpumalanga found equipment and medicine shortages across hospitals in the province. Mpumalanga Premier David Mabuza highlighted a lack of fridges for medicine storage and some hospitals not having enough medicine.

In July, a series of DA site visits to state hospitals in the Eastern Cape, Limpopo and Gauteng revealed that chronic shortages in hospital equipment and medical supplies were putting the lives of patients at serious risk. (Press releases on these visits can be viewed here: 1 <http://www.da.org.za/newsroom.htm?action=view-news-item&id=10921> , 2 <http://www.da.org.za/newsroom.htm?action=view-news-item&id=10983> , 3 <http://www.dampl.co.za/2012/07/da-challenges-minister-motsoaledi-to-spend-a-day-as-a-limpopo-patient/>  and 4 <http://www.google.co.za/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CB4QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.da.org.za%2Fnewsroom.htm%3Faction%3Dview-news-item%26id%3D11044&ei=fi6aUJ3TNcbL0QXr9IHQAw&usg=AFQjCNGh0yMdn2UXS3SH82a0RCK3KAz9JA&sig2=ANdNBif_7LRieFLf-Od6YA> .)

These shortages included:

• A critical shortage of incubators, with 32 new-borns and only six working incubators in Dora Nginza hospital in the Eastern Cape.
• The only three portable X-ray equipment machines, used to assess vulnerable patients such as those on life support, babies in incubators and ICU patients, had been down since November at the Lebowakgomo Hospital in Limpopo.
• Materials used to make protective equipment utilised during radiation treatments had been exhausted, endangering the patients being treated at the Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital in Gauteng.

These finding are in contradiction to the Minister’s reply that ‘all hospitals have basic equipment however the problem is with the functionality of the equipment at all times’.

There is also a contradiction between the Minister’s assertion that no ideal level of resources is specified and his response to a question <https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B_-slGu8-FTxNDJPdXVIbS03R2s>  for oral reply on 29 August where he asserted that an Essential Equipment List (EEL) is still being developed and vetted, which will provide a list of the minimum required essential equipment.

How can the Minister say that all hospitals have basic equipment when his Department has still not finalised what this means?

Why are we still developing fundamental health policies eighteen years into our democracy?

I will be writing to Health Minister Motsoaledi to finalise and implement the Essential Equipment List as a matter of urgency. The Minister should not shy away from finalising this list because he is concerned about the capacity of the health system to ensure that a minimum level of equipment is maintained.

We must urgently transform our health care system and fulfil the constitutional promise of quality health care for all South Africans – our people have waited long enough.