Gauteng: While the Gauteng government was making efforts to fully reopen the Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Hospital (CMJH), there have been 220 staff resignations since the fire last year, and there are currently 677 vacant posts.
This was revealed by the Gauteng Health MEC Nomathemba Mokgethi in her written reply to questions by the DA’s health spokesperson Jack Bloom in the provincial legislature.
According to a written reply, the following posts at the hospital are vacant:
Nurses 355
Medical 88
Admin and Support 209
Allied 25
According to MEC Mokgethi, before the fire, the total staff was 4982, but this has dropped to 4812, partly due to the resignations of 91 nurses and 68 doctors.
“The reduction of staff is due to resignation, retirement, death and contract expired”, and “staff resignations were related to better remuneration, promotions and travelling costs between home and work,” she said.
Mokgethi also said that there was a shortage of professional nurses, critical care and psychiatrically trained nurse specialists.
“In theatre, it is a challenge to strike a right balance between the skills mix and experience due to high staff turnover. This has led to a decrease in executing the plan of continuing to run arthroplasty lists at Bertha Gxowa Hospital due to critical staff shortages,” she said.
Mokgethi, however, said management was working tirelessly to make certain that the remedial work was done for the working environment to be compliant with the Occupational Health and Safety Act.
“Replacement posts are advertised, and recruitment process is followed to replace the resigned employees,” Mokgethi said.
Departments that are closed at the hospital include medical emergency casualties, infectious wards and mental health. A total of 312 CMJH staff have been deployed to other hospitals to assist with CMJH patients, but this is inadequate, and treatment backlogs are growing alarmingly.
Reacting, Bloom said: “I am not surprised by the resignations as staff morale is low as they are frustrated by the slow pace of fixing the hospital and the parking crisis that hits them every day.
Meanwhile, patients suffer the most, with waiting lists for treatment growing longer and longer.
“My DA colleagues in Parliament will be pressing the National Health Department to involve the best skills in the private sector to get this hospital fully functional as soon as possible,” Bloom said.
Political Bureau
