Close to 28 000 life-saving surgical operations have been conducted in Gauteng’s central hospitals in the first seven months of this year, to provide a better health to patients.
The majority of operations were conducted at Chris Hani Baragwanath hospital where 19 620 people were operated on. This was followed by Dr George Mukhari hospital with 4 727 and Steve Biko hospital with 3 577, according to the information released by MEC for Health, Mr Hope Papo.
Most of the operations (5 371) were for obstetrics complications. This indicates that pregnant mothers with life-threatening conditions were saved in these hospitals.
High levels of violence and trauma in the province is reflected in the high numbers of orthopaedic operations conducted. The high number of road accidents and interpersonal violence contributed mostly to the 4 648 orthopaedic operations conducted from January to July.
“The high number of obstetrics, orthopaedic and other emergency [operations] push out elective surgeries resulting in significant backlogs,” Papo said. Other factors contributing to backlogs are the failure of patients to arrive for operations or patients are found to be unfit to undergo surgery. Sometime theatres are fully booked or doctors are unavailable, due to shortages, to conduct the operations.
To address backlogs outreach to referring hospital is being done to transfer skills that will enable smaller hospitals to conduct some of the operations themselves. Central hospitals are being allowed to fill critical clinical posts and their budgets are being reviewed.
