LIMPOPO DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH OVERWHELMED BY HIGH NUMBER OF CHILDREN BOOKED FOR SURGERIES IN THE 2022 LAST RURAL HEALTH MATTERS OUTREACH PROJECT

LIMPOPO DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH OVERWHELMED BY HIGH NUMBER OF CHILDREN BOOKED FOR SURGERIES IN THE 2022 LAST RURAL HEALTH MATTERS OUTREACH PROJECT

Limpopo Department of Health is overwhelmed by the number of children booked in for surgeries at Tshilidzini Hospital during the rural health matters outreach project. We have since booked 191 children for ENT and Peads surgery at Tshilidzini Hospital. 68 booked for ENT surgery are from other districts and 60 from Vhembe District whereas 63 are booked for Paeds surgery. This is as a result of the hype during ongoing rural Health Matters outreach project that seek to reduce the surgical backlog in the province.

It must be noted that Tshilidzini has only 16 beds for mother lodgers. These are mothers who accompanied their babies for admissions under normal circumstances however we have decided to utilize these beds to admit all the children booked for operations. It is unfortunate that as a result 191 mothers who are accompanying these children are left with no accommodation but the hospital has to improvise and uses a recreational hall to accommodate them. The situation has been explained to the parents because we cannot return any child without operating them and our surgeons will be operating throughout the day and night to try and finish them. It must be noted that these surgeons are doing it on a voluntary basis.

“We are worried and concerned that some malicious individuals might take photos and opportunistically circulate them to propagate falsehood and project both the department and the institution as uncaring during the cause of the project and in the process damage the image of this project, the project with good intentions which saw more than 5000 patients from the rural areas benefiting since it’s inception. We call upon all mothers to understand that this arrangement is temporary and at times we must sacrifice our comfort for the sake of our babies. Without this project the waiting period can be up to 12 months and at times babies have died while waiting to be operated. We have been receiving calls from mothers who wanted their children to be operated and we have hid their calls and unfortunately this is our last Rural health matters campaign for 2022,” said MEC Ramathuba.