The Department of Health in Free State has intensified its fight efforts to reduce the backlog of patients waiting for orthopedic operations.
In December 2021, Step Up SA News reported overcrowding at Pelonomi Hospital that amongst others was dealing with alcohol-related injuries due to excessive alcohol abuse that led to violence and motor car accidents, these came as emergency cases superseding scheduled surgeries.
The Department intensified it’s effort to reduce high volumes of waiting times and on Wednesday, 23rd Frebruary 2022, the department opened more theatre space at the high tech Albert Nzula District hospital in Trompsburg where some of the orthopedic patients will be treated.
In addition other hospitals will no longer refer patients to Pelonomi Hospital as they have been fully capacitated.
Manapo Hospital in Qwaqwa and Dihlabeng Regional Hospital are already treating patients while Fezi Ngubentiombi Hospital and Boitumelo Hospital are well on their way to becoming centers of excellence.
The Orthopedic backlogs and the skewed landscape of service provision have been a source of major concern for the Free State MEC for Health, Montsheng Tsiu who had long been pushing for the strengthening of Primary Health Care Services and building capacity at District and Regional Hospitals to enable them to offload the burden that happens to be carried by the Pelonomi Tertiary and Universitas Academic Hospital in the absence of centers of excellence at lower levels of Care.
The Head of Department, Godfrey Mahlatsi emphasized that this is part of the continuing outreach programme that will improve the provision of health care services in the Freestate Province through:
1) building capacity of District and Regional Hospitals.
2) eliminate bottlenecks at the tertiary and central hospitals
3) reduce the cost of delivering health care services in the Freestate Province
4) avoidance of admitting patients for longer periods unnecessarily
“The implementation of this outreach model will surely boost our efficient service delivery, reduce costs and curb long waiting periods for care before and after surgery whilst removing the burden from our provincial centres of excellence- Pelonomi and Universitas Hospitals who will continue to provide support and expertise whilst being freed to focus on their core business” concluded Mahlatsi
Albert Nzula District Hospital’s, Acting CEO, Dr. Mosebi Thejane expressed his excitement at the prospect that what has been in plans for many months is now coming to fruition and the state of the art hospital located on the margins of the province is coming fully to the party to alleviate provincial service delivery pressures and helps to expand the provision of much-needed health services. “It was exciting to see clinical officials and support staff such as cleaners preparing for operating orthopedic patients at this state of the art public hospital.”
Dr Mosebi Thejane conclude, “It’s a game changer because Albert Nzula is the only hospital in Xhariep so you can imagine the excitement and that’s why some of us were taken here.
Albert Nzula was initially meant for trauma cases resulting from N1 accidents and this strengthens our plight.
Rural health will never be same after this.”
Papi Maarohanye, acting Deputy Director General for Clinical Health Services said the department developed a plan to decant patients.
“Pelonomi Tertiary Hospital is our provincial trauma and orthopaedic centre catering for patients from all over the province and neighbouring areas.
We experienced a lot of cases and sometimes a bit of overwhelming. The department developed a plan to decant some orthopaedic patients to Albert Nzula Hospital in Trompsburg to off load Pelonomi and shorten the turn around time for the long wait operations.”
He continued, “A multidisciplinary team of health professionals will go to the hospital on weekly basis to conduct procedures on planned bookings. Patients are probably assessed and risk analysis is done before a clinical decision is made to transfer them. Post operation care is provided at both Albert Nzula and Pelonomi depending on clinical decision. Emergency Medical Care is on standby for the transportation of patients between the two facilities. We have started yesterday with these services and hope to expand them in future to mitigate the current crowding at Pelonomi and gradually improve inpatient care in the province.”
Mondli Mvambi, spokesperson for Free State Health said.
“There are currently 66 patients that Pelonomi is working on to schedule for orthopedic surgeries this week including those that are referred for surgery at Albert Nzula District Hospital. Already Pelonomi has done 251 surgeries in November 2021, 250 surgeries in December 2021, 253 surgeries in January 2022 and so far 134 for February 2022.”
Surely these will de-capacitate hospitals but Mvambi says they have everything worked out.
“To increase our staffing capacity, the department has on Thursday, 24th February 2022, interviewed anesthetists and orthopedics specialists who will come and bolster our capacity at different levels of care.”
Last year the department re-opened the refurbished Heidedal Clinic and these efforts do not go unnoticed.
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