Statement by Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, on the improvement of health facilities in the country, Kimberley Hospital

Conference facilitator
Members of executive committees
Members of the media
Ladies and gentlemen

Let me firstly take this opportunity to commend members of the media for making time to be with us this afternoon for a briefing on developments regarding the delivery of healthcare in the country. I am aware that there are issues that relate in particular to the delivery of quality healthcare in this province and it is my intention this afternoon to also reflect on those issues with the support of the provincial MEC.

As most of you would know earlier this year, as part of our commitment to the delivery of quality healthcare in our country, we launched a programme that is aimed at turning around service-delivery in a selected number of hospitals and Primary Healthcare facilities in our country, including of course this particular facility, Kimberley Hospital Complex. This process will also be used to benchmark good practice and of course we have found many including in this hospital and others throughout the country.

Through this programme, we have identified a number of key standards including patient safety, availability of medicines and storage facilities, clinical care and patient experience of care amongst others that we wanted to improve on as part of our strategy to turn around the delivery of healthcare to our patients.

Perhaps let me first and foremost deal with this sad case of a baby whose case has been widely reported in the media over the past few days. As we all know now, the baby was born prematurely (at 27 weeks), weighing in at 880 grams and had to be resuscitated. Despite the unfortunate onset of gangrene on the baby's right hand, we still remain positive about the prognosis based on a number of positive signs which includes weight improvement and of course the quality of clinical care that this baby is getting. Prior to the onset of gangrene, this baby fell victim to klebsiella infection and we are happy that the attending paediatrician dealt with the problem efficiently in our view. As I have just said, the baby is responding well, and the mother is practising kangaroo care.

In addition, the Head of Paediatrics at Kimberly Hospital is consulting the specialists in Bloemfontein Free State Health Science Faculty.

Now let me come to the appraisal process as part of our interventions to turn around the quality of service delivery in our facilities. Let me point out that this is a national programme but I wish to start with this facility. I am encouraged that Kimberley Hospital by and large performed well especially in areas such as management of adverse incidents, infection prevention and control, clinical governance, clinical audits and reviews. The utilisation of the patients' rights charter and an effective complaints system is another area in which the facility performed very well. There are however some areas which need improvement, which include the safe storage of medicine, certain problems associated with medical equipment, the use of guidelines and protocols, difficulties around radiological services, human resource recruitment and retention.

On my previous visit there were urgent problems that I requested needed to be addressed. I am pleased to announce that soon there will be major improvements as far as the hospital's laundry and boiler system is concerned. As you would know, this is another critical area as far as the delivery of clean laundry for our patients is concerned. To deliver clean and sterilised laundry you require steam and well-functioning boilers. After hearing of the boiler challenges in this facility, I approached various business entities and I am happy to report that there has been a positive response indicating willingness to assist us in this regard, in the true spirit of public-private partnerships and corporate social responsibility. I will soon be able to announce the names of these companies once I receive written confirmations.

I am also pleased to inform you that the challenges experienced in the kitchen have also been resolved.

As I indicated earlier, our turn-around plan is a national intervention covering 27 hospitals and four Community Health Centres (CHCs). I am happy to report today that all of these facilities have been appraised based on the national core standards that I launched earlier this year in Gauteng. The detailed reports of the appraisal process are being used by management of the facilities and provincial departments to develop and implement plans to address the weaknesses found in the system. This is the process that is being followed in Kimberly Hospital.

Generally, the country-wide appraisal exercise pointed to a number of very good practices in our facilities, something we are very happy and proud of. This does not however suggest that there are no challenges in the system. We have, based on the appraisal process, decided to fast-track measures to improve the safety of our patients in relation to preventing the possible spread of infections such as tuberculosis (TB) as well as specifically dealing with the specific underlying factors that could lead to the loss of patient's lives or compromise the quality of care.

As I have said, this is our first step in developing an appraisal system for all our facilities. One of the decisions we have taken is to develop the system even further, and to see if we can ultimately establish an independent inspectorate that would give us objective information about the things I have outlined.

In conclusion, let me express my sincere gratitude to the staff attending to our little patient here and we are immensely proud of the work that you continue to do in saving the life of this baby and the lives of so many others. Of course our prayers and thoughts are with the parents of the baby.

Thank you very much.