R350m overhaul still a deep mystery – downgrade or upgrade? “We are not reducing it to anything, there is no downgrading, we are upgrading. Let us leave it there”, Nomsa Jajula.
By THANDUXOLO JIKA
THE downgrading of Cecilia Makiwane Hospital (CMH) in Mdantsane is now in full swing.
Yesterday, Health MEC Nomsa Jajula handed over Cecilia Makiwane Hospital to constructors, who will soon start demolishing the hospital to give it a R350 million “facelift”.
Details of the “facelift” are very sketchy as the Department of Health yesterday flatly refused to discuss its plans, except to say that it was turning CMH into a 350-bed hospital, which will have a nursing college, a 150-bed step-down facility and a 100-bed psychiatric unit. The new facility will also be equipped with state-of-the art equipment.
But Jajula, who has consistently denied that there were plans to downgrade CMH, again dismissed the existence of this plan. “We are not reducing it to anything, there is no downgrading, we are upgrading. Let us leave it there,” said Jajula responding to this newspaper’s questions.
In April Jajula admitted that CMH was to be stripped of its specialised services, claiming that the plan was a continuation of a pre-2004 policy that identified public health centres as the pivotal point of the health system.
“This is not a policy change but rather a government concept to strengthen the public health sector and to distribute resources according to the disease profile,” she said then.
But yesterday she again refused to discuss the contents of a controversial plan to rationalise health services in the Eastern Cape.
Authored by a team established by the Department of Health, it outlines plans to reshape the health service delivery system, including downgrading a quarter of the province’s 92 hospitals and dismantling the province’s three hospital complexes.
The existence of the plan was uncovered by othe Daily Dispatch last November, but attempts to draw departmental officials, including the MEC and Superintendent-General Lawrence Boya, to discuss them drew rebukes and denials – despite evidence that a discussion document existed and that meetings about a proposed overhaul of the public health system were held.
Jajula told the media and stakeholders that CMH would be elevated to high 21st century standards. “Mdantsane will witness the best hospital in the Eastern Cape which will be second to Nelson Mandela Academic Hospital. We must meet the millennium goal as the city will host practice matches for the World Cup,” said Jajula.
She has, however, failed to provide more details.
The construction will be done in seven phases.
Department spokesperson Sizwe Kupelo said he could not comment as the document was currently before cabinet.
CHM has regional hospital status and provides specialists and surgery in paediatrics, obstetrics and gynaecology, psychiatry, diagnostic radiology and anaesthetics.