Government hospitals are well known for their poor service and dreadful long ques. Patients have to wake up extremely early if they want to be attended to first and avoid having to spend an entire day sitting on a hospital bench.
The Gauteng Department of health has introduced a strategy that aims to redirect surgical procedures to district hospitals. This is in a bid to reduce long waiting times for surgical procedures in hospitals such as Dr George Mukhari Hospital and Charlotte Maxeke Academic Hospital (CMJAH).
“To date Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital and the Dr George Mukhari Academic Hospital have 1850 and 4097 patients respectively waiting to undergo different surgical procedures”, stated the Gauteng Department of Health.
Dedicated satellite centres of excellence have been developed for specific procedures. The GDH continued, “The benefit of this arrangement is that specialist surgeons that are seconded from CMJAH to work at the cluster institutions transfer surgical skills to the medical officers working in district hospitals.”
The Department’s quality improvement surgical team has developed a surgical performance improvement plan aimed at improving theatre efficiency across the province.
“Furthermore, Charlotte Maxeke Academic Hospital has scheduled a weekly Arthroplasty catch-up drive. The Dr George Mukhari Hospital also employs a cluster approach whereby less critical operations are referred to cluster hospitals. These operations are undertaken on a weekly and monthly basis”, said the Department.
