Health and Wellness
With regard to the day-to-day operations at the Vanguard Day Hospital:
(i) What is the number of vacancies at the hospital and (ii) for how long have they existed, (b)(i) what has caused the delays in the infrastructure work at the hospital and (ii) which areas are earmarked for development, (c)(i) what are the infrastructure development plans for the hospital, (ii) what is the infrastructure budget for the 2023 MTEF for the hospital and (iii) when will the infrastructure work for the year begin at the hospital, (d)(i) what are the plans to address the poor filing system, especially for folders, at the hospital, (ii) what are the causes for these challenges and (iii) what are the plans to address these challenges and (e)(i) what is the involvement of Gift of the Givers at the hospital, (ii) how much will be donated and (iii) what renovation work will they be doing at the hospital?
- (i) 96.9% of the post on the Approved Post List have been filled (123 out of 127 posts).
(ii) Due to varying contributing factors such as natural attrition, retirement, promotion and lateral transfers, a few vacancies will always exist.
- (i) Several infrastructure projects, not just Health-related projects, were delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
(ii) Roofing repairs, Records room upgrade, Emergency Centre Upgrade and Dreyer Centre improvement.
© (i) A consolidated Business Case for multiple area upgrades has been prepared and submitted via formal departmental processes for consideration by relevant officials.
The business case requested expansion of administration areas including accommodation of records storage into another area previously utilised for student accommodation that requires significant work after the target building damaged.
Other infrastructure improvements requested include fencing and gates for staff parking to reduce precinct congestion, and emergency unit modernisation to improve patient experience and staff work environment for medical and trauma care.
Day-to-day repairs for urgent maintenance are managed via maintenance portal. In 2023/24 the allocation of funding for the Face of Government Project shall be accessed for smaller projects.
- This is unknown at present given current stage of assessment and escalated costs of projects given inflation. Officials in Chief Directorate: Facilities and Infrastructure Management are appropriate source of costing once project in a more advanced state of planning.
- Within Facilities and Infrastructure Management space, there are still significant COVID-related backlogs given the multiple phases of technical planning and delivery. Projects are constantly reprioritised across Metro Health Services and the entire Western Cape to balance the demand for technical expertise and available capacity. This project remains in a planning stage.
(d) (i) Active records management happens at all facilities including Vanguard CHC under existing policy frameworks to remove outdated files (clients no longer attending healthcare at a facility after five years) and destroy them appropriately. In longer-term, electronic record-keeping shall eventually alleviate transversal challenge of accumulated physical clinical records.
(ii) Filing space is a universal challenge in every health facility with the growing population resulting in more clients are taken into facility-based care. By law, all babies born at the Midwife Obstetric Unit must have their folders kept for 21 years. The Department has not yet adopted electronic record-keeping as standard due to legal requirements.
(e) (i) The Gift of the Givers have been engaging the facility, but nothing has been
confirmed.
(ii) No confirmation as yet.
(iii) No confirmation as yet.
