By Libuseng Nyaka
QWAQWA – The impacts of unreliable water supply, regular power cuts and aging infrastructure are some of the challenges brought up by employees of Mofumahadi Manapo Hospital when new Health MEC Monyatso Mahlatsi visited the facility this week.
Mahlatsi, who is a nurse by profession and is also Free State secretary of Cosatu, said after his assessment tour at Mofumahadi Manapo Regional hospital, which is also earmarked for national Health Insurance implementation, two key problems were identified.
“The unreliable electricity supply puts pressure on our generators which were meant to be utilized as intervention. Now they must run around the clock and perform beyond their capacity. The second issue is access to water which is quite a huge challenge here.”
He said as an intervention, plans are in place to meet with partners such as Maluti-a-Phofung local municipality, MapWater, Eskom and department of water and sanitation to address the problem of access to water and electricity for Manapo hospital and other health facilities in the municipality.
Quizzed about his plans to turn around the health department, Mahlatsi said he is still familiarizing himself with the department but promised to announce future soon.
“This will be after our strategic planning meeting which will happen in the next few weeks.”
New Health MEC Monyatso Mahlatsi, Godfrey Mahlatsi and CEo of Universitas Academic Hospital Dr Balekile Mzangwa during a visit at Mofumahadi Manapo Mopeli Hospital.
Mahlatsi also touched on the issue of Men Mental Health Month, which is commemorated in June, as well as Youth Month.
“We also observe Vitiligo Day today and we call upon our people not to discriminate people living with that condition. We are coming to the end of Youth Month; we call on our country to make sure they invest in the youth and allow them to grow up to be good leaders in the future.
It is also Men Mental Health Month, and we call upon our men who are heads of families to make sure that they are emotionally healthy, and all also contribute to the emotional health of their families because by doing so we will be building a strong foundation of our society and will live in a better world.”
Human and material resources plays a huge role in the DOH. It’s for years now we’ve been struggling about these resources. Material resources are mainly affected by the tender system. That makes us to almost pay triple amount for services.