To meet health demands in the province, the department has advertised a number of administrative and medical personnel positions to be filled at the Albert Nzula District Hospital in Trompsburg, and at the Manapo Hospital in Qwaqwa, among others. The two hospitals are among those that have drawn much controversy throughout the years due to lack of resources and staff shortage.

The DA in the Free State has stated that the state of healthcare services in the province is appalling and called for the ministers’ intervention following their unannounced oversight visit to a number of hospitals last month. The department’s spokesperson, Mondli Mvambi, says the department is hard at work trying to improve healthcare services in the province and rubbishes claims that the department has been dragging its feet in dealing with health challenges and only acts when opposition parties put the spotlight on them.

The DA has lambasted the department for poor conditions at many of its hospitals, at the Free State Medical Depot, and state mortuary where they found dilapidated infrastructure, shortage of personnel, resources, and medication, to be the norm of the day.

During the visits led by MP and Free State DA leader, Patricia Kopane, a shortage of critical medication at the depot, and dysfunctional freezers at the mortuary, coupled with staff shortage were put under the spotlight.

She highlighted that the hospital in Trompsburg had no CEO, head of nurses, nor specialists, despite having been a white elephant and costing the province more than R3.8 million.

Mvambi, however, indicated that the shortage of medication at the medical depot is due to late deliveries by international suppliers - an issue faced throughout the country and being attended to by the minister. He admits that there are freezers that have not been functioning well at the mortuary and that their technicians are attending to them.

Mvambi says they are working on improving the provision of health services and hiring more personnel.

OFM News