Minister of Health
With reference to the escalation of non-COVID-19 services at provincial hospitals after the fourth wave:
(1) (a) What is the projected timeline for the completion of the escalation of non-COVID-19 services so that provincial hospitals may resume normal functioning, (b)(i) how many surgeries, if any, were postponed during the fourth wave as a result of the de-escalation of non-COVID-19 services and (ii) what is the timeline for the eradicating the backlog with these postponed surgeries;
(2) whether any additional funding has been provided to hospitals in the province to eradicate the surgery backlog; if so, how much;
(3) whether there have been any non-COVID-19 treatments (other than surgeries) postponed as a result of de-escalating services; if so, what are the relevant details?
1 (a) This is ongoing and all our hospitals have re-escalated services and have resumed normal functioning to reduce the surgical backlogs.
(b) We use operations a more than 30 minute as a proxy marker for this:
- In 2019 we performed 105 882 operations > 30 minutes. This dropped by 19% during 2020 and even further to 22 % by 2021.
ii Services have already put plans in place to address backlogs, each having its own timeline.
2. We have allocated an additional R 20 million for the eradication of these backlogs in addition to the ongoing and continued escalation of surgical activities.
3. Screening for cervical cancer services, which is a primary health care function, has also taken a significant setback due to COVID. During 2019 we conducted 100 495 cervical pap smears. This dropped by 28 % during 2020 and recovered during 2021 to a 8.5 % drop below the 2019 levels.
Our services have begun re-escalating cervical cancer screening activities again.
