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The superintendent- general of the Eastern Cape Health Department, dr Siva Pillay, met senior officials in Nelson Mandela Bay on Wednesday.
These included finance and HR managers, clinical managers and all seniors managers in the Cacadu and Nelson Mandela Bay District, including the PE Hospital Complex.
"The meeting today was to first get all the managers together, make them understand that they are working in one region and that you have one delivery platform, no silos here," he said.
"The third thing is that we wanted to understand the budget and look at the budget management. Look at our expenditure review so that everybody takes responsibility for their jobs and also to explain and to get the complex (PE Hospital Complex) to understand that it has to support the districts if it wants to decrease costs in the long term," Pillay added.
Pillay says one of the key issues for him relates to the management of resources.
He says in the PE Hospital complex there are around 1300 beds with more than 350 doctors, adding that they way they "organise is a problem for him."
"If you work in silos your are always going to be short-staffed. But, it cannot be right that the whole district of Cacadu has about 1600 and 57 doctors. It is an emotive issue of how you handle it. So, its not the doctors fault and I'm on their side and I'm sympathetic with them, I'm saying our management needs to improve its organisation."
Meanwhile, Democratic Alliance MP, Patricia Kopane, paid a vist to Dora Nginza and Livingstone Hospitals on Wednesday.
She said she will be compiling a report which will be handed to the Human Rights Commission.
Kopane said a human rights crisis is looming in Eastern Cape healthcare.
"The deteriorating state of public hospitals in the province is placing the lives of patients at risk," she said.
"If the Eastern Cape provincial government does not take the necessary steps to address the problem as a matter of urgency the DA will request an investigation by the Human Rights Commission to determine whether the department is violating the patients human rights," she added.
(images: DA MP Patricia Kopane talking to patients at Livingstone Hospital)
