Picture: The chairperson of North West Provincial Legislature (NWPL) Portfolio Committee on Health and Social Development, Gavin Edwards during an oversight visit at Manthe Community Health Centre in Taung
By OBAKENG MAJE
The Manthe Community Health Centre (CHC) continues to operate under severe pressure. This glaring picture was painted by a professional nurse, Mosetsanagape Mongale during the North West Provincial Legislature (NWPL) Portfolio Committee on Health and Social Development’s oversight visit on Thursday.
Mongale said the CHC is operating under severe constraints with less space. She further said due to space constraints, the screening area is located in the patients’ waiting area demarcated by a simple linen partition, which compromises patients’ confidentiality and privacy.
“Besides the space challenge, we are also faced with a water crisis leading to the facility only attending to emergency cases and sending all admissions to Taung District Hospital. Maternity cases are also referred to Taung District Hospital due to the water crisis.
“We are also understaffed at the health centre, which puts excessive pressure on the current personnel. So, due to the challenges faced by the health centre, we have allocated different weekdays for different ailments like chronic diseases, unless there is an emergency,” she said.
Mongale added that the CHC is supposed to assist with baby deliveries, but they refer patients to Taung District Hospital because the facility does not have running water and can only assist during emergencies.
She said water is very critical in the operation of the CHC and it also reduces the chances of infections as the nurses need to wash their hands after attending to each and every patient.
The chairperson of the Portfolio Committee, Gavin Edwards said: “We conducted oversight visits at Manthe Community Health Care Centre and Pudimoe Community Health Care Centre in Taung. The programme is aimed at strengthening oversight, public participation, accountability and transparency in government.
“We acknowledged challenges at the two CHCs and suggested a meeting with the North West Department of Health to check how they are going to mitigate the water crisis. The committee will engage with the department to check if there are any future plans of building proper health care facilities, which meet the norms and standards of health care facilities, adequately accommodating staff and community.”
In Pudimoe, the committee was welcomed by the Facility Manager, Victoria Tlharesengwe. She told the committee that the CHC is operating 365 days, despite daily challenges.
“We have space issues where we ended up dividing our consultation rooms into two using small mobile partitioned curtains. The privacy of the patients is compromised as the discussions between the sister and the patient can be heard by the person sitting in the other makeshift consultation room.
“Those consultation rooms are very narrow making patient observation and treatment a serious challenge. The administration staff does not have office space. Three data capturers are working from the facility manager’s office while the facility manager is working from the maternity room,” said Tlharesengwe.
She said when there is a water outage, they are forced to go and get water from the Jojo tank outside even at night. Tlharesengwe said it is difficult for the facility manager to get at least 80% of her administrative tasks as she is often forced to relieve and assist nurses when required.
“We have allocated one of the nurses to work full time with the centre doctor in order to assist with translation, which has created a shortage of nurses,” she said.
The Guardian 