No security at decaying Kopanong Hospital as grass grows around incomplete new wards

No security guards are to be seen at the decrepit Kopanong Hospital in Vereeniging as they have not been paid, and grass is growing around the incomplete new wards that were meant to be for Covid-19 patients.

This is what DA Emfuleni Councillor Daddy  Mollo found when he visited the hospital this week after receiving complaints about the poor state of the hospital building.

His photos can be seen here, here and here .

The medical staff are concerned by the lack of security and the decay of the old hospital.

Ceilings are broken and the floors also need urgent repair.

Meanwhile, about R200 million was spent on new wards using Alternative Building Technology (ABT) which were supposed to be completed 18 months ago when the Covid-19 epidemic was accelerating.

These wards were supposed to have 300 ICU beds, but the contractor failed to finish the job.

It’s a sad tale of incompetence by the Gauteng Infrastructure Development Department which has failed to fix the old hospital building and wasted a huge amount of money with the unfinished new wards.

The Gauteng Health Department has not yet decided on what to do with the new wards if a new contractor can be found to finish them.

I will raise these issues in the Gauteng Provincial Legislature as the Kopanong hospital needs to be upgraded to provide decent care to sick people in the Vaal area.

 

Further work stoppages at Kopanong hospital Covid-19 wards

Gauteng Premier David Makhura promised last year that there would be 300 extra beds at the Kopanong Hospital in Vereeniging to assist with the Covid-19 epidemic in the Vaal area, but there has been another work stoppage this week that has further delayed this project.

According to local DA Councillor Elize Aucamp, the contractors came back on site on 7 January after not working for a number of weeks, but stopped work again on Tuesday this week.

Photographs of the site can be seen here, here and here.

The project started on 29 June last year using Alternative Building Technology (ABT), and then Health MEC Bandile Masuku said that it would be completed by 31 October 2020. The provincial government later claimed it would be finished by 30 November, but last week Premier Makhura said that legal action was being taken against the contractor after work had “ground to a halt.”

According to a recent presentation to the Gauteng Legislature’s Health Committee, the project is 70% complete and is scheduled to be completed by 31 March this year.

This is yet another failure by the Gauteng Infrastructure Development Department, which has a history of poor implementation of projects, choosing bad contractors which leads to missed deadlines and wasted money.

The tragedy is that hospitals in the Vaal area are struggling with the influx of Covid-19 patients, putting lives at risk.

Note: Clr Elize Aucamp can be contacted at Tel: 082 875 6212

X-ray leak at Kopanong Hospital

I am extremely concerned by the report that all x-ray staff at the Kopanong Hospital In Vereeniging have been put on two months’ special leave as a result of a possible radiation leak.

This is yet another example of poor maintenance at a Gauteng hospital that endangers staff and patients.

According to the Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa (Denosa), the x-Ray Department at the hospital has been broken for some time.

Other problems at this hospital include overcrowding at the casualty and a shortage of beds.

We need to know what the true situation is at this hospital and what is being done to fix it.

A key priority for new Health MEC Bandile Masuku is to come up with a proper plan to fix the endemic maintenance failures in Gauteng hospitals.

Gauteng’s Most Dangerous Hospitals

Serious Adverse Events

The Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital has the highest number of Serious Adverse Events (SAEs) affecting patients in Gauteng, with 62 SAEs reported in 2015.

This is according to information I have obtained from the Gauteng Health Department after submitting a request using the Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA).

A SAE is defined as an event that results in an unintended harm to the patient by an act of commission or omission rather than by the underlying disease or condition of the patient. This can involve negligence, staff incompetence and system failure.

Most Dangerous Hospital

Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital compares poorly with the other academic hospitals which had the following much lower SAEs in 2015:

Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Hospital – 10 SAEs

George Mukhari Hospital – 9 SAEs

Steve Biko Hospital – 3 SAEs

Jubilee Hospital is the most dangerous hospital in Gauteng as it recorded 51 SAEs despite being much smaller than Baragwanath Hospital.

Other dangerous hospitals include the following:

Pholosong – 46 SAEs

Leratong – 30 SAEs

Kopanong and Odi – 28 SAEs

Pretoria West – 23 SAEs

Sebokeng – 22 SAEs

Far East Rand – 21 SAEs

Safest Hospitals

The safest hospitals with the lowest SAEs are as follows:

Heidelberg – 1 SAE

Edenvale – 2 SAEs

Tambo Memorial – 3 SAEs

Rahima Moosa – 4 SAEs

Medical Mistakes

The most improved hospital is Tembisa, which had 17 SAEs in 2015, down from 71 SAEs recorded from January 2012 to September 2013.

There was a total of 503 serious adverse events (SAEs) in Gauteng state hospitals in 2015.

More steps are needed to cut down medical mistakes and ensure that patients are healed  rather than injured in our state hospitals.

 

 

Media enquiries:

Jack Bloom MPL

DA Gauteng Shadow MEC for Health

082 333 4222

[Image source]

Family Traumatized After Patient Wrongly Declared Dead

Kopanong Hospital

A Meyerton family is angry and upset after being told that their daughter and sister was declared dead at the Kopanong Hospital in Vereeniging, but when they arrived to fetch the body they found that she was still alive.

Last week on Wednesday a policeman came to inform them that 26-year-old Tracy Palesa Hugo had died. She had been taken earlier in the week to the hospital after suffering a stroke. They told family members across the country about her death, and posted it on Facebook.

On Monday this week, they came with an undertaker to remove the body, and then discovered that she was alive and being treated in a ward.

A nurse told them that Tracy’s body had already been wrapped for removal after being declared dead, but then it was discovered she was still living. But other versions of what happened have been told to them, and they are confused about what really happened.

Negligence by Hospital

It seems that the police were called to inform the family of Tracy’s supposed death because the hospital claims they did not have a phone number for the family, but the police were not informed later that Tracy had not actually died.

The Hugo family are immensely traumatized by what has happened and want to sue the hospital.

They suffered for five days grieving over Tracy’s death when she was still alive.

This is inexcusable negligence by the hospital.

An inquiry must be held urgently into this distressing matter, and should make recommendations to ensure that nothing like this happens again in our hospitals.

(Contact details of the family can be supplied on request).

 

Media enquiries:

 Jack Bloom MPL

DA Gauteng Shadow MEC for Health

082 333 4222

[Image source]