- An undisclosed number of military health workers touched down in Port Elizabeth on Sunday.
- Eastern Cape hospitals have been struggling to cope
with the influx of Covid-19 patients, as staff at some hospitals embark on
go-slows. - The deployment came days after Premier Oscar
Mabuyane admitted hospitals were “overwhelmed” and requested aid.
The SA National Defence Force’s (SANDF) Military
Health Service has deployed doctors, nurses and operational emergency care
practitioners to the Eastern Cape to help the province’s overwhelmed public
hospitals.
The military medical team was expected to touch
down at Port Elizabeth International Airport on Sunday morning.
SA Military Health Service (SAMHS) spokesperson
Priscilla Lengoasa told News24 more military workers were expected to be
deployed in phases to the province.
She declined to disclose the total number of
workers allocated to the Eastern Cape.
Lengoasa said other military healthcare providers
had already been deployed to assist the provincial Department of Health with
the recent surge in Covid-19 infections in this area.
The medical team was scheduled to depart from the
Waterkloof Air Force Base in Pretoria at 07:00 and arrive at Port Elizabeth
International Airport at 09:00.
Lengoasa said this medical team would be deployed
at Dora Nginza Provincial Hospital in Port Elizabeth.
Province’s hospitals ‘overwhelmed’
“SAMHS spearheads the SANDF fight against the
coronavirus epidemic alongside the Department of Health, and heeded the call of
the president, since the official announcement of lockdown countrywide on 27
March 2020,” said Lengoasa in a statement.
The announcement by the defence force came days
after News24 reported that Eastern Cape Premier Oscar Mabuyane admitted the
province’s hospitals were “overwhelmed” in the fight against
Covid-19, and revealed that he had asked national government for the support of
the SANDF medical team.
The Eastern Cape’s hospitals have been struggling
to cope with the influx of patients, as staff at some hospitals embark on
go-slows over various grievances around their work environment.
The Eastern Cape has the third highest number of
confirmed cases of coronavirus in the country, standing at 34 161.
There are 490 deaths, and 18 980 people have
recovered from the virus in the rural province.
The Nelson Mandela Bay Metro, where the military
medical team will be deployed, is considered one of the leading hotspots of the
virus in the country.
Mabuyane’s admission about the crisis at the
province’s hospitals comes amid growing outcries from nurses and doctors about
being overwhelmed by a high number of patients at hospitals and a lack of
resources.
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