Publications
Partners
After a spate of bad publicity for the Khayelitsha District Hospital (KDH), the Western Cape MEC for Health, Nomafrench Mbombo, opened a new surgical ward and revealed a new Computerized Axial Tomography scan (Cat) as part of the hospital’s improvement plan.
The hospital has been in the news after a member of the public took a picture of patients lying on the floor, waiting to be attended to.
Mbombo said they acknowledged that the service is under pressure and that there is a huge demand for beds, resulting in patients with non-life threatening conditions sometimes having to wait longer.
“KDH has 300 beds and currently operates at a 130% bed occupancy rate as it provides both district and regional health care services.
“We work hard to ensure good service but due to pressure, the experience is not always as good as we would like it to be, particularly at peak times in the emergency centre,” she said.
She said they have a new surgical ward with 30 beds, and a Cat scan which will mean that patients will no longer be transferred to Tygerberg Hospital.
Mbombo added that in order to reduce the long waiting period at the KDH emergency centre, patients who are triaged, with non- life threatening conditions, are redirected to the outpatients department.
Sister Grace Mashaba said everything that has been happening is because Khayelitsha is growing and that they will try their best and with the improvements, things will get better.
Khayelitsha Health Forum’s Mzanywa Ndibongo said the new facility will be of great help to the community of Khayelitsha.
“The new surgical ward will help a lot and people will not get stuck even though we are not happy with the number of beds.”
Ward 94 councillor Patrick Mngxunyeni said the additional services will help.
“I appreciate this. We won’t be 100 percent satisfied but the improvement will help a lot,” said Mngxunyeni.
