Among the waiting patients was one with cancer and more than a dozen mothers and their children.
“I am surprised and angry that a matter we resolved long ago has not been carried out at this hospital. These patients have left their homes and come here so that they can be reviewed. District hospitals provide transport for them to tertiary hospitals," said Dhlomo.
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He instructed hospital management to find a decent place for patients to sleep when they are waiting overnight for transport to other hospitals in Pietermaritzburg.The MEC said that apart from the poor arrangement for patients, he was not impressed with the state of cleanliness of the hospital.
"Today, I saw a patient who has advanced cancer. She is due to go for further treatment at Greys Hospital. I found her kneeling on the bench as she says she cannot put down her pelvis on the concrete floor,"  he said.
"It was obvious if I had not arrived there, she was going to remain kneeling for the whole night. After the visit to Greys Hospital, if she comes back late at Msinga, she would sleep on the benches again.
“I ordered the hospital to find her a decent place to sleep, together with more than a dozen mothers taking their children to hospitals in Pietermaritzburg. If hospital management had been exposed to palliative care maybe they would have been sensitive to this need of our population."
Dhlomo was recently issued with a notice to appear before the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) over the “lack of meaningful progress” in dealing with the provincial oncology crisis.


Dhlomo and his department were singled out in a damning SAHRC report released last year as having “violated the rights of oncology patients at the Addington and Inkosi Albert Luthuli central hospitals to have access to health care services". They had failed to apply "applicable norms and standards set out in legislation and policies”.
The report -- the result of a complaint laid by the Democratic Alliance in 2016 -- also found that the measures the provincial health department told the SAHRC it would put in place to end the crisis were “inadequate and unacceptable”.
(Additional reporting by eNCA.)

Source: ANN7