IN-DEPTH
How chronic ills afflict Gauteng’s healthcare
Province’s hospitals have been hobbled by constant changes in political and administrative leadership
Amalia Slabbert is 67, blind, diabetic, and has been waiting nearly five months for Steve Biko Academic Hospital to fix her heart. All she needs is a stent to open up a narrowed artery. But her doctor can’t perform an angiogram to pinpoint where the blockage lies, because the company that supplies the dye used to trace her blood vessels hasn’t been paid. "She can do nothing. She can’t stand for even 15 minutes without severe pain," says her husband, Pieter, who is also blind and faces an increasingly heavy burden as her carer. The irony of Slabbert’s tragedy is that Steve Biko Academic Hospital was rated as one of the best in SA by the Office of Health Standards Compliance and was described last week by President Jacob Zuma as "the pride of the nation". The unfolding scandal of the Life Esidimeni tragedy, in which at least 118 state mental patients died after they were transferred to unlicensed NGOs, cast the spotlight on the quality of healthcare in Gauteng.Little data on the healt...
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