By OBAKENG MAJE
North West Health MEC for Health, Madoda Sambatha said his department has made more than 100 beds available amid the rapid spread of COVID-19 pandemic across the province. Sambatha said the province has exceeded the 10 000 mark in the last 24 hours.
“We have experienced 638 new infections, taking the total number of infections to 10 525. The total number of recoveries has increased to 2575. Two wards at the Job Shimankana Tabane (JST) hospital together with the Rustenburg Town Clinic, which is 95 metres away from the hospital are being remodelled to make available 100 COVID-19 beds.
“The beds will be used for people who are not able to isolate at home. Those beds will also be used for patients who go to hospital for any other illness and are suspected of having contracted COVID-19 after screening,” he said.
Sambatha added that such patients are kept away from others as they are regarded as people under investigation. He said the North West Health administrator, Jeanette Hunter visited the JST hospital on Saturday to check the progress.
“Furthermore, two field hospitals are being planned in the district, which will make available 500 beds on top of the above-mentioned 100. A site on the JST hospital grounds is being prepared to accommodate 300-bed field hospital with the remaining 200 beds going to Moses Kotane hospital.
“The department has received support from mining companies in Rustenburg. Royal Bafokeng Platinum partnered with the department to build a 200-bed field hospital, which is now operational. Bleskop mine hospital has also been made available for COVID-19 with additional 100 beds,” said Sambatha.
He said tracing and screening initiative is moving swiftly thus far. According to Sambatha, the province identified 3436 contacts of which 3146 contacts have been successfully traced.
“The untraced contacts are from the new cases and only 125 contacts tested positive. A total of 1454 contacts have completed 14 days monitoring period too. The province is responding to COVID-19 at all levels and all districts are now implementing a ward-based screening and contact tracing programme.
“The department has now conducted5 409 103 community-based screening with 7770 referrals. The province’s COVID-19 laboratory confirmed cases contributes 3.7% to South Africa’s burden of the disease,” said Sambatha.
The Guardian 