Supplied
The Eastern Cape Health Department said it was a priority to repair the 49 health facilities that were badly damaged in severe storms that ravaged parts of the Joe Gqabi and Alfred Nzo Districts last week.
The damage has been provisionally estimated at around R10 million.
Seven people, including children, were killed and over a hundred others displaced when the storm ripped through rural villages, ripping off roofs and blowing down walls.
Eastern Cape Health MEC, Nomakosazana Meth visited the Burnshill and Healdtown Clinics on Monday.
She said it was important to move "swiftly to try to return our facilities to normality."
Meth said teams were on the ground working with the Department of Public Works and Infrastructure in municipalities to do the assessment and to repair the damaged infrastructure "within a short space of time."
"It's quite devastating to see that we are so impacted and affected negatively by the storms. Our facilities have been damaged severely," she said.
Meth said the assessment estimates the damage close to R10 million across the province with "severely damaged facilities" being Mount Ayliff Hospital and Qokolweni Clinic in Mqanduli.
"We are looking forward to moving swiftly to try to return our facilities back to normality by replacing those blow-away roofs and all the damage is to be fixed within a short space of time. So by the time we come after the New Year, we expect that there should be some progress made to bring back the services to our people,," MEC Meth said.
