Deaths linked to Nehawu strike could be higher- Phaahla
Health Minister Joe Phaahla says the deaths reported at the Thelle Mogoerane District Hospital in Vosloorus on the East Rand are likely to be linked to the Nehawu wage strike.
Phaahla visited the hospital on Monday morning where all services came to a complete standstill last week.
This as staff affiliated with trade union Nehawu abandoned their posts last week over their demand for a 10% wage increase.
The union vowed to intensify its strike this week, as the government stood firm on its 3% offer for the 2022/2023 financial year.
Briefing the media, the minister said there are reports that babies died at the hospital.
“Until we get the final reports from the clinicians and the pathologist, we will still be saying most deaths are probably linked to the strike. We are talking about people who died in our facilities in a situation where they could not be attended to, where the healthcare professionals who should be looking after them were barred from entering the facility.
"When I was here on Saturday there would be wards where you have 50 children who are being cared for in the neonatal unit, where ordinarily you will have about 20 nurses looking after them and only three had been able to sneak in and look after them. So you can imagine that some of them are kids that are premature and need lots of care and almost every few minutes somebody must be able to check.”
Phaahla warned the death toll may be higher as he is still waiting for clinical reports.
“I can tell that the number is not standing at four for sure. There are more reports but we just want to be very accurate in terms of the accuracy, so we are getting all the clinical reports and all the clinical dat. All I can say at this stage is that there are more than four which we have received and we are getting reports from other provinces as well.”
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