Imtiaz Sooliman – The Gift of the Givers has outlined what it would take to get Gauteng through the third wave

Them and that legal entity and follow something else. Yes, the

hospital got burnt. We understand that, but did the whole hospital,

but part of it burnt. So can't we shut off the part of the hospital

and still open? They got fantastic. I mean, I was there two

weeks ago. I got a shock to see what a beautiful hospital this is.

You know, in your mind was, I haven't been in practice. I

haven't been in hospitals for a long time. Your mind, you think

it's a government hospital. It can't be. So. Graham, be so Glenn,

but this is an absolutely fantastic hospital. It's got 28

theaters. Not that we need theaters now for covid, 19, but

it's got fantastic ICUs for pediatric, for medical, for

surgical and for covid. All that is being wasted whilst patients

are floundering, not knowing where to go. We need somebody in the

government who has got a decision making process, who can take a

decision. There's a serious lack of leadership. How can you allow

people patients to be struggling when nobody can get together and

said, Look, we need to take a decision. Yes, the rule says they

will have this form and that paper and that certificate, but this is

an emergency. You know what? You can bypass all those things,

declaring rules that can bypass at the same time, making sure that

nobody's lives will be put at risk. And that can be done by

cutting out part of the hospital, even if two thirds are functional

or half is functional. It takes a huge burden of other hospitals.

Yeah, and it's about saving lives. MTS tell us about the kinds of

calls gift of the givers has been getting from family, from family

of people suffering from covid 19 desperate for oxygen canisters.

It's nothing new. We got that in the first wave, far more in the

second wave. But what has been frightening in the third wave is

that doctors are calling for oxygen, not patients. To that

extent, when doctors are saying, like in the last 48 hours, let's

put it this way, on Sunday, we got so many calls for oxygen

concentrators, so we asked, but you guys had oxygen concentrators

in the first and the second wave where they now the one guy said,

we've already used 140

and we weighed behind what we require. And this is a doctor, and

he says, we probably need another 500 to 1000

that's from one area of job. I get a call from other areas of Gauteng

to say, we use 100. Is they're not coming back. People are still

sick. We need another it's need another 40 or 50 more immediately.

And the similar cause comes from other parts of Gauteng to say, you

know, we are in serious trouble. So then doctors call. They say, We

are physicians. Can we put up the patients in a hall? So I said, Why

are you going to do that? They said, there's no hospital beds. So

I said, Are you going to take responsibility of this patient

after four o'clock in the afternoon? Are you going to be

there the whole night, and if there's not 110, or 14, are you

going to look after all those patients? The physician says, No,

I can't do that. So I said, then safer to leave them at home with

their families, and we can't bring families to the hall, because that

could become a super spread event. Unfortunately, some of the things

are not disciplined. So you know what? You could have a problem

where the super spreader events involved. So I said, What's the

requirement? They said, Look, we need oxygen in hospitals, but

there's no hospital to there's no beds, the casualties are full. All

we can do as physicians and GPS is go to people's homes. Now that's a

huge strain on healthcare personnel to go to people's homes.

It takes up a * of a lot of time, and especially when there's

so many patients and there's so many people, you can't be having

that kind of situation. You need to free the healthcare workers and

to put more staff into expend more hospitals. There is another

solution, obvious, by the way,

and this is if we can open Charles McKee partially. Look now what I'm

telling you, I've been to the hospital. I don't know the

engineering plan, but it looks quite clear that you can use quite

a part of the hospital. I'm not an engineer, but from what it seems,

it's fine for part of the hospital. Then I've been told by

staff who are working in Hill Brown hospital that the hospital

is only 40% capacity. What stops us from doing cosmetic

renovations, making it organized, even these innovations, put in

oxygen points, and they don't have it and open up more facilities in

Hill Brown we're taking the pressure off other hospitals. Then

the shocking news is, I've been told facilities were built in

marijuana, but they're not open. They're not being used, dedicated

for covid 19. I haven't seen those facilities, but I got information

from more than one source. Yeah, and the other point is, somebody

sent me a video of a hospital that was built in 96 in Campton Park.

It's never used. Apparently, it's vandalized. It's there for the

taking enough space. All it requires, again, is renovation.

Oxygen for covid. You need oxygen, points, beds and stuff that's

already required, nothing more than that. Yeah, and you know all,

and if there's ICU required, open up Charlotte McKey, we've got the

ICU facilities there, and you can move patients from these other

places to Charlotte McKee. I mean, what you know, it's, it's

difficult to understand from what you're describing, that government

hasn't described the situation in the same kind of panicked way that

you just have in tears. Is there real political will to make the

changes, to open the hospitals, to hire the staff, to do what's

needed?

I.

Can't say there's no political world. Look at a time whilst I'm

saying government is not doing the right thing at the same time,

there's a lot of good people in government who want the right

thing to be done. The problem is their own rules. They are caught

up in their own regulations. They don't know how to bypass their own

systems. Their systems are bogging them down, and they too. To the

left of the law. This is an emergency. Emergency means all the

rules are broken. You know, you do what is necessary to save life.

But of course, by taking due precaution, making sure the

structure is not going to fall on 50 patients in China's mechanical

space or whatever needs to be done, bring in more vertical

staff. Hire people calling from the public. We pray you for three

months, six months, whatever you know what we need to bring

personality. And the other great assets in covid 19 are paramedics.

Yeah, we put paramedics, 19 of them in Livingston hospital, and

they're working like machines. You all you need is someone to monitor

the oxygen and to see what's going on, and then you put to a position

so these things can be done, you know. So I'm not saying there's a

lack of political maybe there's anxiety, maybe there's fear, maybe

people are scared if something goes wrong, I'll take the fall.

No, I'll just look at the irresponsible one. But you need

leadership. Yeah, the government seriously needs to show

leadership, because not them, the citizens are suffering and they're

dying. Yeah, absolutely, lives are at stake. We need medical

professionals. We need oxygen concentrators. We need covid 19

beds. Imjea Suleman is the founder of gift of the givers. Thanks, as

always, for your time here on the am report.