From next week, patients at Settlers' Hospital will no longer have to travel to Port Elizabeth to received specialised care from gynaecologists and obstetricians, and they'll no longer have to go to Port Alfred to see a physiotherapist.
From next week, patients at Settlers' Hospital will no longer have to travel to Port Elizabeth to received specialised care from gynaecologists and obstetricians, and they'll no longer have to go to Port Alfred to see a physiotherapist.
As part of a plan to run health services in the district more effectively, an anaesthetist, a paediatrician and a family medicine specialist would also regularly consult with patients at the hospital.
“Last week we have been visited by orthopaedic specialist, who will be visiting us on an outreach basis to see patients. So the hospital is really growing very fast," Settlers' Hospital Manager, Bongiwe Moyakhe, told Grocott's Mail this week.
She was talking about these and other planned changes at the hospital this year. By way of preparing itself for National Health Insurance (NHI), a financing system that will ensure all citizens receive essential health care, Moyakhe said the hospital would focus on strengthening of primary health care.
This, she said, along with attitude, cleanliness, patient safety and infection control had a significant impact on the NHI .
The hospital, a private-public partnership between the Department of Health and Nalithemba Hospitals, still suffered from a shortage of doctors, Moyakhe said. Among the services they couldn’t render was the Choice on Termination of Pregnancy, because the nurse who had been trained to do the procedure had resigned.
"Now that service is now run by the doctors and some patients are referred to Dora Nginza." However, since last June, the staffing situation had improved and the operating theatre, for example, was now fully staffed. The theatre was shared by the private and public entities.
Moyakhe said 66% of the theatre staff was employed by the department of health and 34% was provided by the private side. "So we are running a very successful theatre." Moyakhe said two nurses, one from the theatre and the other in accident and emergency unit, would be going for training in their respective areas.
"All our doctors are trained on advanced trauma life-support.” She said the hospital had received community service doctors who were contracted for a year. The hospital also has a occupational therapist, dietitian, speech therapist, dentist and physiotherapist. Previously, patients seeking a physiotherapist had to go to Port Alfred.
Two clinical associates – doctors in their final stages of training, were also working in the hospital full-time. The rate of neonatal deaths had been high last year, Moyakhe said and they had addressed them with the help of the sub-district.
She said there had been no maternal deaths at the hospital.
Regarding the boom gates erected at the hospital entrance last year, Moyakhe said strong security was a government priority and that they'd had to address patient safety. The hospital's private arm managed security, Moyakhe said.
