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Day 119 of our national lockdown, and I think it’s safe to say the joy of staying at home without having to craft excuses for missing social events has all but worn thin.

Still, taking preventative measures to curb the spread of the pandemic is a walk in the park compared to what our healthcare workers experience, with numerous investigations talking about our “hospitals of horrors”.

As our official death toll nears 6 000, and the number of excess deaths far higher, our doctors, nurses, and others that risk their lives to try and save ours are left high and dry by sheer incompetence at best, and criminal corruption in many cases.

One Eastern Cape nurse has taken to writing a letter to Health Minister Zweli Mkhize, pleading for PPE, proper management, and some kind of empathy as the province’s healthcare system collapses.

The nurse in question is currently at home, after contracting COVID-19 “as a result of gross negligence by the Eastern Cape hospital we work for”.

The letter was published on The Daily Maverick, with excerpts quoted below:

But not even in our wildest nightmares did we as health workers ever imagine that we would be in so grave a health crisis as we are now. And never have we imagined that in the course of performing our duties, we would be risking our very lives…

What is disheartening, however, is the deliberate risking of healthcare workers’ lives because of the lack of empathy from hospital management and – let it be said – from the political leadership in this province. I know the situation is not different at any other public hospitals in this province…

All this could be managed better if hospitals had caring, competent managers. The general feeling among nurses is that those managing SS Gida, and other surrounding public hospitals, are hopelessly out of their depth…

We tried raising these issues with the district office and the district manager simply threatened to fire us if we kept making “unnecessary noise”. We were told that we should use old, torn theatre gowns to protect ourselves.

If you can read this without getting genuinely upset, you have a steelier resolve than I do.

For years, we have watched on in horror as state utilities and enterprises are pillaged and left neglected, and now it’s all coming home to roost.

But hey, if we blow some vuvuzelas it will be fine, right?

There is a general disregard for human life by management at SS Gida and this disregard is even more pronounced when it comes to nurses. We were offended when the premier of this province a few weeks ago announced some ill-considered campaign to blow vuvuzelas in honour of healthcare workers for the role they play in treating Covid-19-positive patients. We don’t want any vuvuzelas, we simply want our rights to life respected.

What must we do, Minister Mkhize? What would it take for national government to intervene? Should we all get sick and maybe die before the department realises the kind of danger we are in? What will happen to the health needs of the people of Keiskammahoek when that happens? Why is there so much hatred for nurses on the part of those in charge of hospitals, and those making political decisions on what should happen there?

Sorry, our officials are too busy feeding from the trough of public funds to address the needs of actual citizens in this country.

Case in point – a recent whistleblower report by Corruption Watch, revealing widespread healthcare corruption, where “elderly people, women, and children are most likely to bear the brunt of the fall-out”.

The report was covered by GroundUp:

“Ultimately, if the cost of corruption is not merely a stolen rand here and there, but a precious life, how much farther do we have to drift from our moral compass before we act?” asks researcher Melusi Ncala of Corruption Watch in the report titled X-ray: The critical state of the health care sector in SA…

Corruption in procurement takes the form of inflated pricing, irregularities in awarding of tenders, preferential treatment of suppliers, and kickbacks paid to officials when contracts are awarded…

The report says the result of this is a shortage of medication, equipment “and the state paying exorbitant amounts to fund the lifestyles of officials”.

Everywhere you turn, another example raises its head.

Hey, is that the husband of President Ramaphosa’s spokesperson, involved in a R125 million “PPE tender bonanza”?

Yup, it is, and what of those scooters in the Eastern Cape, designed for use as mobile clinics, which were bought by the Eastern Cape health department at a price of R10-million?

Another fiasco.

There really is no depth our public officials won’t stoop to in order to line their pockets, while nurses are forced to pen letters in the hopes that somebody, anybody, will take notice of their plight.

[sources:dailymaverick&groundup]