Patients at the Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Hospital (CMJH) can expect to wait for 4 hours at Outpatients and 2½ hours at Casualty as the hospital struggles with more than a million patient visits a year.
This is revealed by Gauteng Health MEC Bandile Masuku in a written reply to my questions in the Gauteng Legislature.
I am concerned that these figures underestimate the real time that many patients spend at this hospital, including delays in registering and at the pharmacy.
Last month I visited the hospital early in the morning and witnessed a scuffle as patients fought to be in the front of the queue when the pharmacy opened at 7 am.
Queue marshalls have been placed at the pharmacy and a numbering system put in place for people who are there at 6am, which I hope stops queue disputes.
CMJH is the busiest of the four academic hospitals, seeing more patients than the Steve Biko and George Mukhari hospitals combined, and about 360 000 more patients a year than Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital.
A combination of strategies which include health education to communities, infrastructure, strengthening of referral systems and the use of underutilized theater times at private facilities is being looked at by the Department to better the service provided and deal with the high and concerning waiting times and surgical backlogs.
I welcome the promised partnership with private hospitals to decongest this very busy hospital. Computerised patient files and alternative sites for patients to pick up their chronic medicines would also help greatly.
This highlights once again why government’s priority should be fixing the public health system before embarking on its complex National Health Insurance (NHI) plan.