Pretoria - As the public service strike continues, more hospitals seek assistance from the South African Millitary Health Service's (SAMHS) medical teams.
The SAMHS have stretched it services to 61 hospitals across the country, where medical teams have been deployed to provide health care during the strike.
The medical teams have been sent to 11 hospitals in Gauteng, nine in Limpopo, four in Eastern Cape, two in Northern Cape and seven in North West, KwaZulu-Natal and Free State. Fourteen hospitals in Mpumalanga have also requested assistance from the Millitary Health Service.
SAMHS spokesperson, Colonel Louis Kirstein said that depending on the request by provincial Health MEC's, who identified the hospitals in need, medical team may consists of doctors, nurses and emergency health care practitioners.
"We are also deploying personnel to assist with the cleaning of the hospitals and most of the time we receive requests for nurses and cleaners," Kirstein said.
National Department of Health Spokesperson Fidel Hadebe said that the situation in state hospitals has improved as the department no longer receive report of invasion and threats from striking workers.
"Although the situation has not normalise to a point that we are ok, but we no longer get reports of intimidation or invasion in the hospitals as it was the case when the strike started," Hadebe said.
