Below are the priority focus areas of the PMU team set up by Premier Lubabalo Oscar Mabuyane.
Goals of the project management unit team.
1. To reduce the risk factors for a person to person transmission, through a dual strategy of suppression, mitigation and readiness of the health systems.
2. To reduce the risk of mixing and exposure of between infected with susceptible and infected persons.
3. To protect the vulnerable groups of aged, and those who have comorbidity and other risk factors.
4. To prepare the health systems capability to manage the surging demand for Covid-19 infected asymptomatic and mild symptomatic low-risk persons.
5. To repurpose, reengineer and invest in new health capability for managing of hospitalized severely ill.
6. To invest and expand the availability of critical care services for patients with respiratory failure and those who require advance medical care.
7. To invest in the protection of health care workers risk of occupational health exposure and the ensure enhanced interventions for infection prevention and control.
8. To enhance the tools for epidemiological surveillance, forecasting, and uses of data to inform Covid-19 interventions.
Priority focus areas of the PMU team:
Determination of Hospital Bed Requirements to meet the Covid-19 Surge.
The PMU will be responsible for the confirmation of available beds per facility per district, consolidation of the hub and spoke model and identification of the hubs, establishing a transport and communications network to facilitate patient movement and to create required staff establishment to operationalize the hubs and spokes.
Emergency Medical Services: the PMU is tasked with improving coordination of ambulance capacity and networks between Livingstone hospital, its catchment area, with a similar arrangement in the OR Tambo and Buffalo City Metro to achieve equitable access to critical health care services.
The PMU will urgently review the distribution and resourcing of ambulance bases/EMS stations, test and strengthen the EMS communications network/system, draft a guide of the hub and spokes network with drive time polygons and road infrastructure reports to inform referral routes and placement of hubs and related resources. They will finalise the implementation plan with timeframes, clear tasking of responsible individuals and resource requirements in the coming week and report to the leadership at both the National and Provincial Department of Health.
Facility specific interventions required:
The PMU is tasked to ensure the appointment of people with the requisite authority to enable decision making into Management positions, allocation of resources for procurement of equipment (e.g. beds, monitors, CPAP devices etc.) accelerate human resources recruitment for clinical, support and EMS services (e.g. laundry services, cleaning services, medical waste contracts); adopt a rapid recruitment system, including addressing agencies, medical, pharmacy, allied health workers, nursing and EMS students, oxygen supply chain management accelerated to ensure reticulation of hospitals and some community health centres to create oxygen infrastructure.
The PMU will ensure that National and Provincially coordinated interventions to address labour unions is carried out as an urgent matter which requires a multi-pronged approach to include the Ministry of Health, Labour, DPSA.
Operationalising the REV. DR MAMISA CHABULA NXIWENI field hospital:
Given that the Dora Nginza Hospital is overwhelmed with a dire shortage of critical care capacity, the PMU team will ensure that all the critical care patients are immediately triaged and transferred from Dora Nginza hospital to the Rev. Dr Mamisa Chabula-Nxiweni field hospital. As per the recommendation of the report, this referral pathway will be clearly described in Nelson Mandela Bay Covid-19 clinical care pathways.
The PMU will, on behalf of the Provincial government, explore the possibility of a partnership with Netcare, Life, Private Sector with the transfer of their overflow patients to the Rev. Dr Mamisa Chabula-Nxiweni field hospital. To ensure proper care for patients, when beds are allocated to the private sector at the Rev. Dr Mamisa Chabula-Nxiweni field hospital, Private sector hospital should provide their own staff and resources. This will ensure a joint effort in providing healthcare to the people of our province.
The PMU is tasked with fast-tracking the re-establishment of the triage area developed in accordance with the 2010 FIFA World Cup standards for disaster management at the Livingstone hospital as this is a critical capacity that may be used to arrange the triage and flow of all Covid-19 patients in the western region and possibly parts of the central region.
The PMU team will put in place systems to ensure substantive planning for optimal use of the Covid-19 capacity developed in the Nelson Mandela Bay Metro, with all components of patient referral and transport being aligned to ensure up, and down-referral are used efficiently as per the recommendation of the support team.
Oxygen supply chain management:
With regards to ensuring proper and adequate oxygen supply to all hospitals, the PMU is tasked to ensure that the hub and spoke will inform capacity development for oxygen storage and hospital reticulation investments.
Another critical focus area in this regard is a consideration for sourcing oxygen in neighbouring provinces for districts furthest from Nelson Mandela Bay where Air Separation Units are located. One of the options to be explored is the feasibility of hospitals in the Alfred Nzo and OR Tambo districts sourcing their oxygen from KwaZulu-Natal as its closer to them than the Metro. The oxygen team will revise their priority hospitals to consider the hub and spoke especially in the 4 districts without regional hospitals (Alfred Nzo, Joe Gqabi, Sarah Baartman, Amathole) and Chris Hani district (for Frontier Hospital).
For more information:
Premier’s spokesperson – Mvusiwekhaya Sicwetsha
082 955 8833 or 062 594 5703
Email: Mvusiwekhaya@gmail.com or Mvusi@icloud.com
