By OBAKENG MAJE

Most public healthcare centres in North West do not have medicines such as antiretrovirals (ARVs). The detailed report released by the Ritshidze organisation painted a grim picture and showed that North West is lagging behind in extending the supply of ARVs. 

The report revealed that just 6% of people living with HIV interviewed reported three-month ART refills — compared to 25% in the same reporting period last year.

The project manager at Ritshidze organisation, Ngqabutho Mpofu said, their detailed report into the state of the public healthcare system in the North West found improvement in certain indicators and deterioration in others over the last year. 

He said this impact the overall quality of HIV, Tuberculosis (TB), and other health services.

“The report is based on the results of data collected through Ritshidze’s community-led monitoring of 13 facilities in the province together with additional data collected at 57 facilities by Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), Stop Stock-outs Project and Ritshidze related to stock-outs.

“The 2022 report identifies challenges that discourage people from going to the clinic for HIV, TB, and other health services. Despite the improvement, stock-outs still persist. This year, there were 398 reports of different medicines, contraceptives, and vaccines being out of stock in total across 57 facilities,” Mpofu said.

He further said 26% of patients said, they or someone they knew had left the facility without the medicines they needed. According to Mpofu, North West has scored worst across all provinces monitored on this indicator.

He added that, even though the waiting times have improved, but remain long.

“More than 91% of public healthcare users interviewed think that waiting times are still long and 64% of those people blamed staff shortages for the long hours waiting. While marginal improvement has been identified in staffing levels in the last year — from 0% of facility managers reporting enough staff last year, up to 15% this year — this remains a very high proportion of understaffed sites.

“Also index testing is always meant to be voluntary, yet worryingly. More than 36% of respondents reported that they could not refuse to give the contacts,” Mpofu said. 

He said, worse, while every precaution should be taken to not put people at risk of violence, 34% of respondents were not asked if their partners had any risk of violence, despite national guidelines mandating this process. 

Mpofu said the report also showed that only 20% of gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men, 9% of people who use drugs, 14% of sex workers, and 14% of transgender people reported being offered PrEP at the facility. Mpofu said, however, that only 9% of gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men, 12% of people who use drugs, 5% of sex workers, and 4% of transgender people said they could access lubricants.

“The inadequate space also continues to be a challenge as 92% of facility managers interviewed reported needing more space for waiting areas, filing systems, and rooms for private HIV counseling/testing and medical care,” he said.

 Meanwhile, the North West Department of Health spokesperson, Tebogo Lekgethwane said: “The department is aware of the issues raised in that report. Those are the issues that we have been dealing with since section 100 (1) (b) intervention. These are the issues that were highlighted as areas of intervention and there has been progressing on them, particularly in regard to medication stock-out.

“At the beginning of section 100 (1) (b), the situation was far worse than it is now. So, there have been a lot of improvements in terms of the availability of medication. Of course, there have been challenges with some of the service providers that have put the department on hold because of some monies owed to them.”

Lekgethwane said, however, that a lot of service providers have been paid and they are beginning to see an improvement. He said the issue of long queues, is linked to the availability of staff, but there had been a lot of improvement as they have recruited over 3000 healthcare professionals recently.  

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