Cape Town - The estimated number of elective surgeries that need to be completed by the Western Cape Department of Health to eliminate the backlog caused by Covid-19 stands at 20 849.
This is according to Health MEC Nomafrench Mbombo, responding to questions in the legislature.
Mbombo said the annual numbers of elective operations had not yet recovered to 2016-2019 levels, but the annual deficit in elective operations had decreased each year since 2020, the deficit now half of the 2020 deficit.
“Backlogs on elective surgery have been building up over the past three years primarily due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
In June 2022, the Western Cape reported a backlog of 77 000 surgeries which include those of under 30 minutes duration as well as those which require longer theatre time.
“We have made strides in reducing the backlog but have been impacted by factors such as continuous new trauma and emergency admissions as well as load shedding,” she said.
Provincial Health spokesperson Mark van der Heever said all hospitals in the province had to put elective surgeries on hold during Covid-19 and the subsequent rolling blackouts were impacting planned elective surgeries.
“Back-up power supply at hospitals is rerouted to emergency centres and theatres, thus ensuring emergency surgeries can continue while electives are put on hold until the electricity is stable on the power grid.
The provincial government has also motivated to Eskom via the Minister of Health for our hospitals to be exempted.”
“Some hospitals have been exempted, and we are looking at how more can be exempted from rolling blackouts.
“In the medium-term, the provincial government is also investigating how renewable energy such as solar can be used to supplement and generate further power for hospitals,” he said.
Van der Heever added that hospitals had increased day surgeries as far as possible and that the department had procured two surgical robots worth R80 million to assist with clearing the backlog.
Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa’s (Denosa) spokesperson, Sibongiseni Delihlazo said that the pandemic severely impacted the country’s health system and had resulted in the backlog of elective surgeries nationally.
“It is a serious issue and from our perspective, we knew that health-care workers would be faced with the mammoth task of dealing with the backlog.
“We also feel that the number in the Western Cape can be reduced even more if there was a commitment to increase nurses in theatres, as well as the increase in nurses who study specialist courses such as theatre nursing, ICU, and trauma. We do have a shortage of nurses who study these courses. There should be further commitment by the health department to increase these specialised nurses,” he said.
Cape Times