Groote Schuur Hospital not yet prepared for coronavirus

In this post two weeks ago (also see here) I wrote the Western Cape Health Department and WC government were not prepared for the coronavirus pandemic.

In this interview in BizNews Dr. Ross Hofmeyr, an anaesthesiologist at Groote Schuur Hospital and University of Cape Town Medical School, said, “We’ve been slowly and steadily making preparations which been accelerating over the last few weeks (emphasis added)”. Few weeks, .i.e. two or three, and no rush.

Only now? A month ago, shortly after the first reported case in South Africa, the WC government and WCHD boasted about their preparedness. At the time I questioned that and remarked why only at Tygerberg Hospital. I was right.

The article's title “forewarned is forearmed” is misplaced because it appears GSH and WCHD have been sleeping on the job. They've had a month to do this not counting the fact the country as a whole, like the west, rested on their laurels while the virus made its inexorable way west and did little except deny and minimise it hoping it would be like the Biblical plagues that passed believers' homes.

Authorities around the world including sanction-pressed Iran are creating from scratch 2 000-bed field hospitals in far less time - 48 hours - than it's taking GSH and WCHD - “weeks” - to fit one ward in an existing facility. 

But of course, the South African way is “slowly”, oblivious there's a disaster NOW which requires urgency, efficiency and speed.

And they and media think it's a wonder to behold, as the media do, by (DA's) GSH/WCHD's modest and tardy efforts. Lord help us if the pandemic gets worse in WC and SA.

I use Groote Schuur and based on that and patients I've spoken to, their and WCHD's overall patient care service rates less than 50%, which is also the rate the annual South African Health Survey gives WCHD, 2018: 47% the third or fourth lowest in the country of nine provinces. It dropped from 53% in 2016.

A week or two ago Premier Alan “Windbag” Winde praised themselves and cipher health MEC Nomafrench Mbombo for their coronavirus preparations. But really the buck stops at the head of health Dr Beth Engelbrecht and her senior staff who in routine healthcare matters regularly drop the ball as I've reported in this blog.

I'm reluctant but forced to use WCHD and GSH. An experience in October last year is a case in point. The registrar “cured” me of a condition which GSH itself had diagnosed years before (he was adamant “nothing was wrong”), discharged me then literally with a stroke of a pen reinstated it, i.e. I had a “relapse”, on the discharge form – no exam, blood or scan needed. (He didn't sign the form so it's worthless as a medical document. So what do I tell my primary practitioner: GSH and WCHD don't know basic medicine: diagnosing and filling medical records? I've always said so, though.)

We appreciate the work healthcare and essential service workers are doing now, putting themselves at risk and sacrifices they're making. But as I keep saying, and a year ago I told Beth Engelbrecht: get your house in order. 

Now is not the time to test new systems and procedures. Deficiencies in systems shall inevitably be revealed if you haven't remedied others in the past (you know what I'm talking about). 

The same message applies to GSH's CEO Dr Bhavna Patel and UCT and Stellenbosch medical schools with whom the department shares staff.

My criticism is addressed of WCHD and WC government executives - head of health Dr Beth Engelbrecht, Winde and Mbombo, which I have done about health matters. But they don't listen and never learn, not even from their own mistakes because according to them they never make any. Remarkable people. (In their audited 2018/19 annual they give themselves 90% plus including for performance indicators they say cannot be measured. As a former accountant and contract auditor-general auditor it took under an hour of quick review to discover this and other deceptions.)

Their hubris - DA hubris - is terminal.