A surprise visit to the Hanover Park Community Health Centre revealed that patients were still fed up over poor management.
|||Cape town - A surprise visit to the Hanover Park Community Health Centre on Thursday revealed that patients were still fed up over poor management of the facility’s pharmacy.
On Tuesday the Cape Argus reported that patients who visited the clinic to collect medication for chronic conditions, such as diabetes and high blood pressure, sometimes spent almost 12 hours in queues only to leave without their prescription.
Western Cape Department of Health spokesman Mark van der Heever accompanied the Cape Argus to the facility on Thursday.
Almost all of the wooden benches in the pharmacy’s small waiting room were lined with people. However Roland Halford, who was there to collect his diabetes medication, noted that it was not a busy day.
“Come here on Mondays and Tuesdays, then the queue is all the way outside and around the building.”
The Hanover Park resident said he arrived at the clinic at 5.30am for a doctor’s appointment and had been waiting for his medication since the pharmacy opened at 9am. “I’ve been here for three hours.”
But this wait paled in comparison with previous visits. He has sometimes had to queue for almost eight hours.
“I’m diabetic so I’m scared to eat before I get my pills. So I must wait here and I start to feel dizzy and sick the longer I must wait.”
He said the problem was a badly-managed pharmacy, with staff starting too late and closing too early.
“And then they go on lunch and tea breaks, and we must sit and wait because nobody is at the window.”
Other patients had similar experiences.
Faghma Sharman added that while elsewhere in the hospital everything moved smoothly, she always ran into problems at the pharmacy. “Sometimes they don’t even have stock.
So I wait and wait, I don’t get anything.”
The Hanover Park resident said that she had been forced to queue three times to collect last month’s prescription.
On the other hand Christine Leeman, 59, said the clinic was her favourite section of the facility.
Leeman, an asthmatic, has travelled from Malmesbury for 20 years just to collect her prescription.
“They attend to me quickly, and you get what you came for… They are definitely the best.”
But even Leeman admitted that, on occasion, she had to spend “a lot of time” queuing at the pharmacy.
“It doesn’t bother me, I’m patient.”
In the two hours that the Cape Argus spent at the clinic, the queue started visibly thinning out.
Three of seven people the Cape Argus interviewed had received their medication by the end of the visit.
Felencia Kammies, who was collecting medication for her son Matteo, 3, said she spent just under two hours in the queue.
Sharman spent around three hours on the wooden benches before her prescription was ready.
Van der Heever said most of the patients who were interviewed were collecting chronic medication and were therefore not emergency cases.
Delays were often the result of the pharmacist checking the accuracy of pre-packed chronic medication. “This sometimes takes longer than anticipated.”
He said the facility was looking at ways to reduce the waiting times.
kieran.legg@inl.co.za
Cape Argus