Minister of Health Mduduzi Matsebula will meet Mbabane Government Hospital staff to discuss a way forward, amid the challenges facing the health facility.
The meeting is meant to address the plethora of challenges faced by the hospital as well as other government health facilities countrywide.
Seeing no end to the challenges, last week, healthcare workers at the Mbabane Government Hospital advised patients to ‘self-admit’ at home due to lack of essential drugs.
According to the health workers, they were hoping that the proposals made last week, including the self-admission, would be part of the agenda during the meeting. Mbabane Government Hospital Unit Committee Secretary General Hospital Musa Shongwe said they were assured by Principal Secretary, Khanya Mabuza that they would have a meeting with the minister today.
Related: No change at Mbabane Govt, minister meets staff today
“The PS assured us that we will meet with the minister so that we can deliberate on the way forward.. We also hope that we will have an opportunity to discuss the proposals we made last week with the ministry and find the best possible solution,” he said.
Matsebula confirmed that he would indeed have a meeting with the health workers today. “Yes I will meet the health workers tomorrow (today),” he said. The minister mentioned that the meeting was in the best interest of the country. He said they needed to have regular meetings as a ministry.
Last week, sources within the hospital, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the overwhelmed healthcare workers resorted to informal triage systems, prioritising only the most critical cases.
Other patients whose conditions warranted admissions into the facility were reportedly encouraged to go back home and monitor their conditions. The workers said they were not coping with the lack of not only medical drugs but other supplies.
The healthcare workers claimed that shelves in the hospital’s dispensary were as good as empty because most critical drugs were out of stock.
Health workers yesterday revealed that nothing had changed to date as they were still advising patients to self-admit.
They said they had returned to work as normal but there was still a shortage of drugs in the dispensary and patients had to buy medication from pharmacies.
They also mentioned that they were hoping that the situation would normalise soon. Adding, some health workers mentioned that another challenge was that management did not always tell the truth and patients were misinformed to think that drugs were available ,resulting in them flocking to the facility only to be turned back or advised to purchase their own medication.
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