Bela Bela residents want local hospital’s ICU reopened

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Some residents of Bela-Bela in Limpopo are calling on the provincial Health Department to reopen the local Warmbaths Hospital’s Intensive Care Unit (ICU). The four-bed unit was shut down in 2020 when the hospital was downgraded from a regional to a district hospital. Residents believe lives could have been saved if the ICU was still open.

A resident, Katlego Nhlapo says she has lost her mother at the hospital in May last year due to lack of ICU services and alleged incompetence.

“There is a lot of incompetence that I have noticed during that process because you cannot keep a person the whole week knowing exactly what is needed for her. As for the hospital people, I was expecting them to act immediately because one of their colleagues who referred her to the hospital had made thorough checks and then I didn’t see why they were still doing those checks.”

Limpopo’s Health Department spokesperson Neil Shikwambana says the hospital was downgraded following a government gazette as it does not offer some services.

“When the democratic dispensation came through, there was a need for integration and reclassification of facilities hence we had the government gazette of 2012 which (covers) the nature and package of care and the level of care that hospitals provided. So, according to this government gazette, Bela Bela hospital is a district hospital which does not fit to have an ICU, an ICU is looked at as a specialist function so in this instance the ICU is found at Mokopane Hospital.”