Five managers at the Mahikeng Provincial Hospital will be transferred to other health facilities, pending investigations after newborn babies at the hospital were placed inside card boxes instead of crib beds.
This was revealed by MEC for Health Madoda Sambatha when issuing a preliminary report into the incident on Wednesday.
Sambatha said the report found that the managers failed to report the shortage of beds at the facility and that the suspension of the two nurses last week Friday was now lifted.
“The five managers must give the department formal accountability. The reason that we are saying formal is because as I speak with you now, there is no formal report from the management about the incident. We don’t have anything in writing that comes from management. We are only relying on our intervention and the investigation.
“Now we will not disclose the names or ranks of the five managers. So because this was a preliminary investigation. We must now do a full investigation of the whole incident. But it is limited to the responsibilities and the actions of the five managers and has nothing to do with the nurses and doctors who delivered the babies. It also has nothing to do with any community member who circulated the pictures of the babies.
“In terms of the procedural arrangement of the bargaining council you have an option to suspend, send a person home and you have an option to precautionary transfer. What happens is that if I am a Chief Executive Officer for instance in this organisation but we have a position of CEO elsewhere, instead of sending you home we shift you precautionarily. We are transferring you from one facility to another,” Sambatha said.
Health workers’ unions in the North West, Nehawu, and Denosa are appealing for a fair investigation.
Nehawu’s regional chairperson in Ngaka Modiri Molema, Zanele Lawu, said the Department of Health must also be investigated.
“The rot should not only be found here in this institution. But this investigation should also be extended to include those at the departmental level who are dealing with procurement. So that a lasting solution can be found to all the challenges of this institution,” said Lawu.
While Denosa’s regional chairperson, Tshepo Monoketsi, believes the nurses have been unfairly treated.
“In most instances, it’s not the nurses that are at fault. But the structural defects that we find ourselves in looks like we are incompetent whereas it’s actually the opposite,” Monoketsi said.
A full investigation into the incidents is expected to be concluded within 60 days.
