By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital, the largest hospital in Gauteng, is facing a severe food shortage that is putting patients’ health and well-being in danger.
Addressing the media after a site visit, Gauteng health & wellness MEC Nomantu Nkomo-Ralehoko said she was made aware of the shortage at the weekend.
“I was made aware by the hospital management of the challenges and inconsistency when it comes to the supply of groceries at [the hospital] and the contingencies that they had put in place to ensure that patients’ meals continued to be provided,” she said.
This follows the report on Monday about the hospital’s serious food shortages.
Nkomo-Ralehoko said her team had established the systemic issues that contributed to the situation, based on the report obtained from hospital managers. These include:
- Poor contract management and escalation of challenges;
- The hospital does not have enough cold storage capacity to enable food to be procured in large quantities; and
- Some of the suppliers are overcontracted and cannot keep up with meeting orders. This relates to the appointment of multiple suppliers instead of contracting one supplier for multiple items, which they end up not being able to deliver.
She said the department would review the problem so that services are no longer compromised by service providers who do not have the required capacity.
The situation has created an urgent need for immediate intervention from the government to ensure that patients are not adversely affected. The hospital staff is doing everything possible to manage the situation, but the scale of the problem requires a comprehensive and coordinated response from the authorities.
Meanwhile, the Gauteng health department will go into the new financial year with a significant budget cut after failing to spend all of its infrastructure grant from National Treasury.