Cape Town - A total of 178 445 children under five years old have died in public health facilities since January 2013.
The cause of death was pneumonia in 10 216 cases, diarrhoea in 9 491 cases, moderate acute malnutrition in 1 410 cases, and severe acute malnutrition in 11 172 cases.
This was revealed by Health Minister Joe Phaahla when he was responding to parliamentary questions from DA MP Michele Clarke, who asked about the total number of children who had died in public health facilities in each province since January 2013, and the breakdown of the reasons for each death.
Phaahla’s response showed that Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal recorded 38 243 and 39 711 child deaths respectively.
The Eastern Cape had 25 189 deaths, followed by Limpopo with 24 744, Mpumalanga with 14 226, the Western Cape with 11 736, North West with 10 300, the Free State with 10 189, and the Northern Cape with 5 107.
Phaahla said he could not give the cause of each child’s death, saying to do so would be in contravention of the Protection of Personal Information Act.
However, he said aggregated data on common causes of deaths in children were diarrhoea and pneumonia.
The underlying causes such as severe and moderate acute malnutrition were collected routinely through the district health information system.
Phaahla also said the number of child deaths owing to unnatural causes in public health facilities may not project an accurate picture across the country, as final causes are documented following the forensic report analysis.
He said Statistics SA, Home Affairs and the SAPS provided accurate information.
According to Statistics SA, there were 12 224 non-natural deaths from 2013 to 2018.
Clarke said that, given that a study conducted in neonatal wards in South African district and regional hospitals found that 33% of patients were infected with pneumonia in hospital, it would be logical to assume that at least 3 000 of the 10 216 pneumonia-related deaths were from hospital-associated infections.
“The horrendous state of many of the health facilities (in respect of which) the DA conducts oversight (inspections) certainly bears out the high risk of infection,” she said.
Clarke also said the National Health Insurance bill would not make a dent in addressing issues because the government saw the myriad of problems plaguing the public health sector as an issue of funding, when in fact the problem lay with management of funding, resources, staff, projects and processes, and management of consequences.
“The truth is that the national and provincial departments of health have failed to adequately invest in, maintain, and manage the public health sector,” she said.
Cape Times