Neelam Rahim | neelam@radioislam.co.za

5 min read | 14:30 pm CAT

The Treatment Action Campaign has just released its report on the state of health services in the Eastern Cape and says critical Ritshize data reveal key improvements in Eastern Cape Clinics. However, poor staff attitudes remain problematic. According to the report, progress towards getting 95% of people on treatment remains off track. The information will be presented to the Eastern Cape Department of Health and other duty bearers at a Mdantsane, East London community meeting.

Speaking to Radio Islam International, Ndivhuwo Rambau said this is the second edition of the Eastern Cape State of Health Report. The data in the report was from July 2022 to August 2022.

The 2022 report identifies challenges that discourage people from attending the clinic for HIV, TB and other health services.

The challenges still include waiting time which has improved from the last report, but patients still wait long. The waiting times have gone down from 4 hours 37 minutes to 3 hours 47 minutes in 2022.

However, around 60 per cent of public users still thought the waiting times were still long during the year, and 66 per cent of them identified the staff shortages as part of the reasons for the long hours of waiting in the facility.

It seems almost impossible to attract and retain healthcare workers in rural areas with hundreds of open vacancies across just 30 sites.

The report highlighted that sites are unsafe, yet people wait at the clinics in the morning. Rambau said that healthcare users, especially those using the public healthcare system, opt to arrive early because they know they will wait for a long time.

The rationale for public health users is, “If I arrive early, it means I’ll be attended to earlier and, in turn, get home earlier.”

A key recommendation to the Eastern Cape Department of Health is to open up the grounds for patients to start queuing within the facility rather than standing outside where it is unsafe to wait.

Meanwhile, infrastructural issues negatively impact the overall experience of public healthcare users, including putting people at risk of getting TB.

The report has presented the fundamental duties barriers which is the department. Recommendations have been put together and submitted to the department of health, and there was also a meeting with the MEC, which accepted the report.

Rambau said another meeting is due three months from now with the MEC and health department to see how far they are in implementing the recommendations.

Listen below to the interview with Mufti Yusuf Moosagie and Ndivhuwo Rambau on Radio Islam’s podcast.