Written by Umamah Bakharia 

The dire circumstances of staff and patients at the Rahima Moosa Hospital in Gauteng remain in the news. The hospital has been under scrutiny, after paediatric expert Dr Tim De Maayer, wrote an open letter about the horrible conditions experienced by staff as they try to save babies and young children.

Dr De Maayer was reprimanded for daring to write the letter about the conditions at the hospital and is still living under a cloud. Radio Islam speaks to DA Shadow Minister of Health, Michelle Clarke on her visit to the hospital.

She says when they inquired why CEO Nozuko Mkabayi was not present at the meeting, the staff stated that Mkabayi and the HR manager were on leave. “I found [this] very convenient because we just put out a media alert [at that time] that we were coming,” says Clarke.

The DA was given a tour with the management team who stated that they were not informed or consulted when Dr de Maayer was suspended. “The CEO did that on her own without any consultation of any of the rest of thh management team so that in itself is a problem,” says Clarke.

She confirms that the issues that Dr de Maayer has written in his complaint about the hospital’s dire situation are true. She states that the hospital has a terrible water system that has the ability to infect patients, poor infrastructure and the CT scan life expectancy has run out.

“The real issue here is that this hospital is expected to perform a tertiary service but they don’t have the budget for that,” says Clarke. She adds that if the hospital had the budget it would have the ability to function better.

The DA has since called on the health ombudsman to investigate the Rahima Moosa Hospital.