Times Of Swaziland: 2 GOVT HOSPITALS HIT BY FOOD CRISIS

2 GOVT HOSPITALS HIT BY FOOD CRISIS
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Andile Nsibande on 17/06/2019 08:51:00


HLATIKHULU – It’s more like getting out of the frying pan and into the fire.
This difficult situation seems to embody everything that has gone wrong in the
country’s health care system, where, in a bid to quell fears, government
recently purchased some of the medication that had been reported to be out of
stock in hospitals across the country, albeit not knowing that the same
facilities would soon run out of the most basic of needs – food.
The food shortage reportedly hit the country’s two large public hospitals in
the Shiselweni Region (Hlatikhulu Government Hospital and Nhlangano Health
Centre) last week, forcing some patients to opt out of wards.
Administrators
So dire was the situation that hospital administrators at the two facilities had
to run from pillar to post, seeking alternatives to feed patients accommodated
in the wards. At the Nhlangano Health Centre, for instance, staffers said
administration had to purchase food stock from their own pockets in order to
keep the patients going over the past weekend after the common food supplier
reportedly withdrew services over outstanding payment from government. In
Hlatikhulu, on the other hand, patients revealed that for the past week,
hospital staff had been dishing only two slices of dry bread for all the meals
of the day. An interviewed patient said there was a brief relief on Tuesday when
they were given porridge and soup. Thereafter, the patient said they were back
to the bread supply. A spot check conducted by this publication discovered that
staffers at the Hlatikhulu facility’s kitchen were literally left with nothing
to do on Saturday after everything got finished.
Staffers said at the time, there was no food in the kitchen save for the bread
which was being delivered to the hospital because the bakery supplying the
facility always demanded an upfront payment. “There was a stand-off between
government and the catering company, emanating from the latter’s failure to
pay for services,” explained a staffer at the Hlatikhulu facility. Over the
past days, patients were said to be relying on their attendants and other
relatives who bought them something to quell their hunger pangs.