Infant death rate high in E Cape

2010-09-08 19:12

Johannesburg - There was an average of 40.3 infant fatalities per 1 000 births in the OR Tambo region of the Eastern Cape, not 430 per 1 000 as previously stated, the provincial health department said on Wednesday.

"The average is 40.3 per 1000 deaths, not 430. The provincial death rate is 38 per 1000," said department spokesman Sizwe Kupelo.

He cited HIV/Aids as being a major contributor to the number of deaths.

The rural nature of the area, social reasons like pregnant women being assaulted and women not going for HIV testing early enough also contributed to the high death rate.

The Democratic Alliance (DA) in the province, quoting a report from the Parliamentary Monitoring Group, earlier issued a statement saying almost half the babies born in the province's OR Tambo region died during birth.

'The wrong figures'

The Eastern Cape health department had briefed Parliament's portfolio committee on health on the recent increase in infant mortality in the province, specifically in the Nelson Mandela Academic Hospital.

Kupelo said his department had presented the correct figure in Parliament, but that "someone somehow got the wrong figures".

The national office of the DA sought clarity on the matter from the provincial department, he said.

"The matter was clarified."

The Eastern Cape's average overall death rate was 38 deaths per 1 000 births.

Compared with the national figure of 18 per 1 000 births, these statistics were shocking, sad and simply unacceptable, DA spokesperson Pine Pienaar said.

Incompetence

It was irresponsible of the health department to not seek to rectify such a mistake in a report which was now in the public domain.

"It just shows how incompetent they are," he said.

"We have also learnt from this report that a mere 26% of the province's budget was allocated to health work itself. A gross 63% of it is allocated to the cost of employment."

Pienaar said over-spending on employment was making it impossible to invest in infrastructure and resources needed for quality healthcare.

The lack of control over spending and "blatant corruption" indicated that poor monitoring by the government could impact on mortality rates, specifically on child deaths, Pienaar said.

"We are living in a province where babies have to share incubators, officials are allegedly selling state drugs to bolster their income, ambulances do not come when they are called for and many mothers do not know their HIV status."

He called on the "ANC-led government to tell us what it is going to do about this".

- SAPA