Grahamstown's Settlers Day Hospital has scored full marks in a national hospital audit for the positive and caring attitudes of its staff and the reduced waiting times in its queues.
Grahamstown's Settlers Day Hospital has scored full marks in a national hospital audit for the positive and caring attitudes of its staff and the reduced waiting times in its queues.
Fort England Psychiatric Hospital also received positive scores on most measures.
The results, which date back to a national health facilities audit conducted in 2011/2012 were first made known to staff at the hospital through a City Press report published last week. This was six months after the newspaper requested them in terms of the Promotion of Access to Information Act.
“It is a team effort where we focused on the six priorities set out by the Health Department,” said Nursing Manager at Settlers Day Hospital, Zoleka Menziwa.
The priorities include staff attitudes, waiting times, cleanliness, availability of drugs, improving patient safety and security, and preventing and controlling health care-acquired infections.
While the team can be proud of scoring 100% on the first two measures, the audit also revealed poor scores in patient safety and security (41%), availability of medicines and supplies (53%) and facilities and infrastructure (55%).
Professional Nurse Felicia Rademeyer said staff arrive half an hour early for work each day to begin the registration process and redirect patients. This helps reduce the waiting times of about 150 patients who consult the hospital each day.
“I really enjoy what I do and if I’m happy inside, I am able to transfer my happiness to patients,” said Rademeyer.
Nationally, positive and caring attitudes were one of the worst-rated items in the survey, scoring an average of just 30%. This proves the Settlers Day Hospital has something special to offer.
Olwethu Silumko, a patient who visits the hospital, reported that she had been very pleased with the care she has received there.
“Ever since I’ve been here they are all lovely and helpful and I haven’t had to wait long to get help," Silumko said.
Meanwhile, Fort England hospital scored 100% for patient waiting times and received 90’s for availability of medicines and supplies, clinical support services and patient rights.
Fort England CEO Dr Roger Walsh said that aquality assurance team had been put in place since the audit was conducted.
"We're striving to improve our scores and have been making progress.
"There are still some difficulties in some areas,but we have expanded our outreach since the survey was conducted. We've increased our outpatients and bed utilisation. We've almost doubled our throughput of observation patients for the Department of Justice – the waiting times were 10 months when I arrived [18 months ago] and its now down to four months. Our revenue has also doubled," Walsh said.
The National Department of Health audited every health facility in the public health sector from May 2011 to May 2012. According to the national summary report, the audit assessed infrastructure, classifications of facilities, compliance to priority areas of quality and function, human resources, access and range of services offered and geographic positioning for location of facilities.
The purpose of the audit was to collect baseline data from all public health facilities throughout South Africa. This was done using standardised tools provided by the Department of Health in order to assess infrastructure and services.
The audit results, which date back to 2011/2012, were released to City Press in February.
Fort England national audit scores:
Priority Area Outcome Score
Availability of medicines and supplies Compliant 98%
Cleanliness Non-Compliant 87%
Improve patient safety and Security Non-Compliant 77%
Infection Prevention and Control Non-Compliant 72%
Positive and caring attitudes Non-Compliant 90%
Waiting times Compliant 100%
Settlers Day Hospital national audit scores:
Priority Area Outcome Score
Availability of medicines and supplies Non-Compliant 53%
Improve patient safety and Security Non-Compliant 41%
Infection Prevention and Control Non-Compliant 70%
Positive and caring attitudes Compliant 100%
Waiting times Compliant 100%
Download the full audits at the links below.
