-Caveat Lector-
AIDS overwhelms S.Africa hospitals
Many dying prematurely because services so stretched: report
HIV-positive Cecilia Modise watches as a nurse takes blood
from her infected 25-year-old mother at a South African
hospital.JOHANNESBURG, South Africa Hospitals in South Africa
's most AIDS-ravaged province, KwaZulu-Natal, are being
overwhelmed by a growing number of AIDS patients, the country'
s leading medical journal reported in its latest issue.
THE SOUTH African Medical Journal found urban and
rural clinics in the province stretched to breaking point,
with HIV-positive patients filling 80 percent of beds in some
rural clinics.
South Africa has more HIV-AIDS sufferers than any other
country. The government estimates 4.7 million people, or one
in nine, are HIV-positive.
The number may rise to 7 million by the end of the
decade, placing a catastrophic burden on South Africa's
already under-funded health system, according to some health
experts.
Only a minority of sufferers can afford the drugs and
care available in the private sector, which is the best in
Africa.
The government has insufficient funds to meet the AIDS
challenge and is only now looking to secure cheaper supplies
of AIDS drugs and other medicines after winning a landmark
court case against the world's biggest drugs firms earlier
this year.
KwaZulu-Natal, one of the country's most populous but
poorest regions, has the biggest AIDS problem, with more than
one in three pregnant women suffering from the disease.
"People are dying prematurely because we are so
stretched. Medical patients who don't have HIV-AIDS are being
severely compromised because we have to discharge them
prematurely... The system just can't cope," Jim Muller, acting
head of three of the province's leading hospitals told the
journal.
PATIENTS SHARE BEDS, CHILDREN DIE
Medical journal staff visited hospitals where patients
were forced to share beds and in some instances compelled to
sleep under beds because of a shortage of facilities.
Most AIDS sufferers were women aged between 24 and 35,
many of whom had contracted the disease in the last 10 years.
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Drugs were in short supply or non-existent, surgical
procedures abandoned because of limited resources, and
hospital staff overworked. Doctors had essentially become
terminal care workers, the journal said, based on interviews
with health workers.
HIV-positive children in need of a respirator were
dying because of pressure on resources.
"If the kids are HIV-positive we don't ventilate and
the kids die. That's become general practice," said Kimesh
Naidoo, a pediatrician at Grey's Hospital.
Healthy Issues
At the remote Hlabisa District Hospital in northern
KwaZulu-Natal, 75-80 percent of patients were HIV-positive and
half of these had full-blown AIDS.
"Nobody seems to be planning for the AIDS epidemic...
It's a catastrophe waiting to happen," Hlabisa's principal
medical officer Sean Drysdale told the SAMJ.
� 2001 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is
expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of
Reuters.
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