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Modimolle - Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi says the management at the Limpopo TB MDR clinic has effectively collapsed.
Motsoaledi visited the unit on Tuesday to check what was happening there after reports surfaced that the TB treatment centre was malfunctioning.
Motsoaledi and Limpopo health MEC Phophi Ramathuba met with the management of the unit for more than three hours discussing the problems experienced there.
“We reached a conclusion that the management of this hospital is not doing very well. It is managed as a TB unit under Warmbaths Hospital,” said Motsoaledi.
This meant that managers were not on site, but based at another location.
“I detest that type of management system, (it) does not work. There is no way. It needs its own management.”
“There is no expertise in the world that will (enable) people to manage two hospitals (a) distance of twenty-seven kilometres (apart),” he said.
He said this system was done away with in 1994 when addressing hospitals dedicated to particular races.
“We have found that the management is not working, especially in Waterberg.”
Motsoaledi told reporters he discovered that the problem in the hospital was mainly ineffective management and this resulted in the hospital failing to deliver services.
The hospital, on the shoulder of R101 road in Modimolle, is one of the nine in the country launched in 2009 with special emphasis on TB.
Blamed management
In 2011 it was equipped with experts monitoring multidrug-resistant TB patients.
The hospital made headline news last week after allegations surfaced that it was using sub-standard items, including gloves.
But Motsoaledi dismissed this on Tuesday and argued that the gloves in the hospital are similar to ones used in other hospitals.
“It has passed certain specifications which we believe are standard to everybody, and we are no longer running out of stock.”
The issue of protective face masks was also addressed as there were allegations some masks were exposing staff members’ faces.
Motsoaledi said the department had switched companies delivering masks because of an unreliable supply.
He said the size of masks could be a problem and blamed this on management.
