By Marlan Padayachee
DURBAN: SEVEN days of brutal looting, rioting and burning of factories and warehouses by hundreds of thousands of protesters has dealt a major blow to the health services sector and has left private and public hospitals without bread, milk, linen, basic necessities and oxygen supply.
The rioting has hit Durban, home of three-million people, the hardest with all deliveries of off-site supplies of essential foods, health products like sanitizers, oxygen and medication been cut off since Monday and onto the midweek in a double-edged challenge of residents resorting to vigilantism and arming themselves with guns and weapons to stave the marauding masses of breaking through residential hubs across the city’s affluent suburbs.
The razing down of several warehouses in the Riverhouse Valley came close to destroying oxygen suppliers Afrox, which is under tremendous supply and demand pressures.
Also, Durban’s largest inner-city regional RK Khan Hospital is operating at a 30% staff capacity and huge shortages of food, drinks and essential health products, Reverend Cyril Pillay, chairman of the board told the Tabloid Media Weekly Gazette Newspapers.
Desperate doctors and nurses told me that both in-patients and out-patients were desperately sending them text messages via WhatsApp of their Catch-22 situation of being left without chronic medicines. Many telephoned doctors s to inform them that they were unable to receive medicines via deliveries from the pharmacies or collect medications as a result of the city-wide blockade and policing of roads across the volatile region.
The St Augustine’s Hospital has informed doctors, nurses, staffers, service providers and patients of the dire consequences of the chaos and skirmishes brought by the widespread wanton looting of warehouses and factories, later moving to residential areas – including the Indian-zoned townships of Chatsworth and Phoenix – and the targeting of racial groups and intra-racial violence that has claimed many unconfirmed deaths.
Dr Letasha Kalideen, a specialist physician, said last night: ‘’I have fuel for only two working days. Who do we speak to tell them about this desperate situation where hospitals have no bread, milk or oxygen supplies after the weekend mayhem of senseless looting, violence and rioting.’’
Dr Monica Vaithilingam, a specialist paedtrician, said she did not know how she would go to her consulting rooms to attend to her patients – many of her child patients have run out of chronic medicines – and the dilemma of getting back to her home amidst the dangers.
Heinrich Venter, General Manager at the Netcare Hospitals Group and St Augustine Hospital, said: ’In the light of recent protests … be assured that we will continue to provide with the best care possible in the circumstances, although we are at present experiencing some challenges with deliveries and staff transport to our facility that are beyond our control.’’
On nursing care, Venter added: ‘’You may at times experience a delayed response as many of our staff have been unable to get to work; and our menu selection is at present limited … meals may be delayed, and on linen …we make use of an off-site service provider and deliveries are unfortunately not guaranteed.’’
Reverend Pillay said he had been informed by the RK Khan Hospital’s CEO Dr Linda Sobukwa that the state hospital was ‘’under severe pressure and in a tight squeeze’’ over food supplies, linen, and cleaning services as a result of the stay away prompted by the threats of the looters in the giant township.
“The hospital is in a real tight squeeze, a very tragic scenario of staff shortages, no food and water. Fortunately Pick n’ Pay supermarket has provided some foodstuff for the patients, many victims of the Covid-19 pandemic. The laundry service has been severely disrupted, no clean linen, dirty dishes are piling up and lack of cleaning services poses unhygienic and health hazard conditions,’’ said Pillay, who has appealed to the ANC MEC for Health Nomagugu Simelane
Doctors at the Mahatma Gandhi Hospital in Phoenix said the hospital was also under pressure from the consequences of the rioting around the Inanda-Newtown-Kwa Mashu cluster of poor communities.
- MARLAN PADAYACHEE, our freelance senior correspondent and group columnist, is monitoring the crisis of the looting, arsons, chaos and racial tensions on a 24-hourly basis, and can be reached on: marlan.padayacgee@gmail.com
