Pretoria – The Mamelodi Regional Hospital has been renovated in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, chief executive Dr. Naing Soe said.
Soe said their catchment area had had low positive cases so far.
In the past five months, only 18 patients succumbed to Covid-19 and most of them had comorbidities.
Soe said of nearly 1000 employees, about 100 had tested positive. “Almost every day we do tests and most of them come back negative; luckily no staff member has died, and most of them don’t have severe symptoms or are asymptomatic.
“The Mamelodi community is blessed because very few people are Covid-19 positive.”
The hospital had gained a bad reputation following years of bad management and what Soe described as a “horror movie”.
He said the entire hospital had been repaired – from the entrance to the casualty ward.
Automatic hand sanitizers have been installed in the entire hospital and patients have new toilets.
“The walls are painted, tar roads resurfaced, boom gates are new, and CCTV cameras have been installed from parking to entrance. Every staff member has an air-con and genuine leather chair. The CT scan has already been purchased and we will soon install it,” said Soe.
In April, a video surfaced of an overcrowded maternity ward, referred to as Marikana, with 30 to 40 women.
Soe said he had not been aware and immediately moved the mothers to a better ward. The ward is now bigger and new equipment has been installed and isolation rooms added.
He said he received support from MEC Dr. Bandile Masuku and all other seniors, who urged him to complete all his projects even after Covid-19 came.
“For COVID we got 20 new patients under investigation beds and a tent for those patients. Even though we are not in crisis, because the Gauteng numbers are very high we must stay prepared so we have another tent set up with 20 beds for patients under investigation.”
He said hopefully the second tent would be functional by Friday. However, he was relieved that the Mamelodi community was not getting sick as much. He added that his team was motivated to work tirelessly to maintain the improving standard of the hospital.
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