Specialist shortage at KZN hospitals 'threaten healthcare sustainability'
Thousands of patients in KwaZulu-Natal are facing long waits for life-saving treatment as a shortage of specialists cripples the province’s busiest state hospitals.
In a reply from KZN Health to the provincial legislature, cardiology patients can wait up to six months for an appointment, while cancer patients face backlogs of up to ten weeks.
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Some urology patients at Greys Hospital in Pietermaritzburg could wait years before being treated.
More than 9,000 people are in the queue to see an eye specialist.
DA provincial health spokesperson, Imran Keeka, says the shortages are so severe they threaten the sustainability of healthcare in the province.
"At Inkosi Albert Luthuli, there is just one full-time cardiologist. Greys has only a sessional cardiologist who manages to do only three or four angiograms in a fully equipped unit once a week. This is intolerable for those in queues for what may be lifesaving procedures.
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"Employing level one doctors every year pursuant to their pressure because they camp outside government headquarters, instead of prioritizing the urgent need for specialists and registrars who are specialists in training, is part of the problem."
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