Cape Town - Health and Wellness MEC Nomafrench Mbombo says the Covid-19 pandemic exposed how fragile the country and the province’s health system was, but it had also taught them some valuable lessons.
Mbombo said the third and fourth wave of the virus had forced the department to pause and put on the backburner treatments for other illnesses such as TB and diabetes.
One of the crucial lessons learnt was to consider poverty and unemployment in communities when dealing with health issues, she said.
Mbombo was answering questions during the standing committee on health’s deliberations on the department’s 2021/2022 Annual Report.
Committee member Rachel Windvogel (ANC) had asked whether the department could have handled the pandemic differently and the lessons learnt.
Mbombo said: “During yet another bumpy financial year, it is sometimes easy to forget the department’s many outstanding achievements.”
As Covid vaccines became available to the public, the department opened the two biggest vaccination sites in the province at the Cape Town International Convention Centre and the Athlone Stadium, which also had a drive-through facility, she said.
The department also put plans in place to resume services that had to be cut back during the pandemic.
Elective surgeries were severely affected, she said, but by allocating an additional R20 million, increasing day surgeries and procuring two surgical robots for R80m, the department had demonstrated that it was serious about addressing surgical backlogs.
Committee chairperson Wendy Kaizer-Philander said the department obtained a fourth consecutive clean audit.
In the year under review, there were two pandemic surges in the Western Cape which led to 675 392 confirmed cases in 660 029 residents of the province. There were also 1 563 reinfections and 21 915 deaths by April 18, 2022.
Kaizer-Philander said: “The department obtained more than 80% in client satisfaction surveys at all of its facilities during the year under review. Despite the pressures on our province and health-care system, quality health care was still being delivered.”
Replying to committee member Ayanda Bans (ANC), who queried the costs to change the department’s name, department head Dr Keith Cloete said the name change had not happened in the reporting period, but would be included in next year’s annual report.
Chief financial officer Simon Kaye said the department had three occurrences of fruitless, wasteful expenditure amounting to R12 006. Consequence management had been meted out.
mwangi.githahu@inl.co.za