The below talk was delivered by Sasha Stevenson on 25 May 2022 as part of a lecture series hosted by the“This is a harrowing account of the death, torture, and disappearance of utterly vulnerable mental healthcare users in the care of an admittedly delinquent provincial government.”
In May and June 2021, as surgical patients at Chris Hani Baragwanath were told to wait, Rahima Moosa Mother and Child Hospital doubled the number of babies delivered each day, and emergency departments in other tertiary and central hospitals were up 50%, various promises were made by provincial and departmental leadership.After that, everything went quiet.
In the course of a year of fumbling, healthcare workers across the province have been nothing short of heroic. At Helen Joseph Hospital, which has taken up much of the slack of the closure of Charlotte’s psychiatry services, staff members were advised to avoid the psych waiting area and to note down all assaults. Some psych referral services have now re-opened at Charlotte Maxeke hospital but not enough to alleviate the pressure at Helen Joseph hospital.
Just this past weekend, paediatrician Dr Tim De Maayer did what brave health workers in this province have always done. Having done everything in his power to care for the desperately ill children at Rahima Moosa Mother and Child Hospital, he raised issues with management and, having seen no change, he.
This is, of course, a pattern in Gauteng health. We rely on health worker heroism while allowing leadership failure and failing to listen to those most invested in the system. Of course, some of these events and some of the negligence claims are caused by just that: negligence. But consider Dr De Maayer’s words “If healthcare workers are the centre of providing care, we cannot hold. Things are going backwards, fast.”
Our health system is meant to do something radical! Keeping people healthy and productive and capable of living a fulfilled life, of getting an education, and realising their potential. It is the foundation of so much of the potentially transformative power of the Constitution. This should be obvious in a country that so often, and rightly, touts its progressive constitution. But the reality of what it takes to make constitutional rights mean something seems to evade the imaginations of our leaders.
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