Water scarcity in the Free State Province remains a serious problem, especially at health care facilities. At some hospitals surgery cannot be conducted and patients have to be referred to nearby hospitals.
South Africa’s current water storage across the country is at critical levels and the drought’s impact in the province is also creating a looming public health crisis. Sub-district local municipalities have been providing various health facilities with water tanks as an interim measure, however, some residents have been alleging that there is no drinking water at some hospitals.
Provincial Health Department’s spokesperson, Mondli Mvambi, admits that there are challenges at health centres across the Thabo Mofutsanyana District but disputes allegations that there is no water at health facilities. Speaking to Courant, Mvambi says they knew that they would be highly affected when the province was declared a disaster area due to water scarcity in September last year.
“We had to dig deeper into our resources and infrastructure by firstly making sure that infection control issues are well managed within the facilities.
“When water is scarce, our theatres, the daily operation of hospitals and the cleaning thereof is affected”
We facilitated with the disaster management committees in various districts to look after the drought-affected informal areas. “Reorientation was done to make sure that the water quality is consistently monitored within the tankers. This was to ensure that our health practitioners clean the mud in those tankers and the water levels are acceptable for usage in all our health facilities. In many instances, we had to buy water purifiers to ensure that the water meant for drinking is not the same water that is used for washing laundry or general cleaning.” The department receives weekly reports from various districts on the availability of water levels within their facilities. Patients in need of surgery at Phuthuloha Hospital in Ficksburg are being referred to Dihlabeng Hospital in Bethlehem. Mvambi says not all surgeries are being done at Manapo Mopeli Hospital in Qwaqwa and there are still some patients referred to Dihlabeng or Bloemfontein. “We are not there yet. We can’t lie and say there are no challenges. We are immensely challenged. However, we are doing our best to make sure that our patients are well treated and that they have access to clean drinking water. There has never been a patient who walked out of our facilities in search of drinking water. We never knew that there would be a situation where the department, which is not primarily responsible for water dispensing, would be faced with this kind of challenge,” he further explains. The department plans on keeping communities informed. Mvambi says everything has become a sphere of electioneering as they know they are approaching the local government election. He emphasises that the current drought the country is facing is not manmade and is due to the weather patterns. Various health facilities in the Thabo Mofutsanyana district are highly affected, he says. “We have sent water geologists where it was needed to identify alternative water sources such as boreholes. There are existing boreholes at many clinics, but they haven’t been used. We have been refurbishing them and they are now routinely maintained and ready for utilisation when needed,” he adds. Mvambi is adamant that they haven’t found any waterborne diseases in the water that they have tested so far. “People can trust that we are doing our level best to make sure that they get proper quality health care services, despite the fact that we are afflicted by water scarcity. The water scarcity is a global phenomenon. We should all save water. It is environmental consciousness that we need to make sure that our scarce nonrenewable resources are preserved, not for all of us, but for the next generation as well.” – Refilwe Gaeswe
refilwe@centralmediagroup.co.za
