Grey Hospital in Qonce is at risk of closure after an oversight visit revealed critical staff shortages, maintenance failures and the absence of a legally required occupational health certificate.
The extent of the crisis emerged during a meeting between hospital management, community stakeholders and Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) chair Songezo Zibi, who said the problems pointed to deep systemic failures.
Hospital chief executive Nomzingisi Mnyipika said severe understaffing had forced management to place workers in departments for which they were not properly trained.
“To make good of a bad situation, the hospital would take porters and use them as mortuary attendants as the department had no full-time workers,” she said.
Mnyipika said she was also performing duties in the administration department because there was no-one to head the section.
Zibi said the absence of an occupational health certificate, which must be renewed annually to confirm a building’s safety, was a serious transgression.
“Grey Hospital is at risk of being closed down,” Zibi said. “You need to have an occupational certificate.
“A hospital without this certificate can be closed. This is a very serious matter.
“This certificate is renewed every year.”
He said the lack of maintenance staff had contributed to the deterioration of the building.
“You end up losing your certificate because of no maintenance and the building then becomes dilapidated,” he said.
“There are deep systemic problems that cut across the hospital, which raised questions of how many hospitals are operating without certificates.”
Hospital officials also raised concerns about overcrowding, saying patients were travelling long distances to seek care because the nearest community health centre was in Dimbaza.
For the 2024/2025 financial year, 6,720 patients were admitted to the casualty ward, while 8,639 were treated in non-emergency wards.
Community activist Petros Majola said residents had repeatedly complained about the quality of services at the hospital.
“I had a person crying about how there was no care given to them at the hospital,” he said.
“The issues that people keep raising with me include problems of the cleanliness of the hospital, the standard of the food served, the lack of proper care from nurses and doctors.”
Patients shared similar frustrations.
“I had come here and experienced long waiting hours, and one time when I brought my brother here after he had a car accident we had to leave for East London to go to a private hospital because we saw that there was a shortage of doctors here and that we were not going to get attended to,” a Zwelitsha resident said.
At a community meeting at the Qonce Town Hall, residents also complained that the hospital no longer operated its patient transport bus.
However, the Eastern Cape health department disputed some of the staffing figures presented at the meeting.
Department spokesperson Siyanda Manana said residents who were meant to first visit one of the 29 clinics and two community health centres in the referral area were instead going directly or being referred to the 61-bed hospital “without ascertaining if there are beds or not”.
“There are 11 doctors at Grey and the department has advertised posts for clinical and non-clinical staff,” Manana said.
“The problem was the medico-legal claims which bludgeoned our budget, making it difficult for us to fill posts.
“But the department has 363 doctors from the annual interns and community service health professionals.
“The ministerial intervention has given us 122 medical officers, 248 emergency care practitioners, 28 professional nurses.
“The emergency fund has given us 577 critical positions — professional nurses, data capturers, HTS counsellors, staff nurses, IT technicians, clinical programme co-ordinators.”
Zibi said while Grey Hospital’s problems were severe, they were likely not isolated.
“This is a common picture across the health facility. We must look at this systematically rather than targeting the individuals,” he said.
Daily Dispatch
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