"They should come to spend a day here and stand in the queues and experience what the majority of the population experience and then maybe something will be done, no human being should be treated like this, let alone the sickly".
Earlier this month healthcare workers aired out some of their grievances during an oversight visit by the Deputy Minister in the Presidency, Pinky Kekana.
The healthcare workers spoke about staff shortages and patients who have had to go without a meal for two days because the stoves were not working.
Shrosbree says that Provincial Hospital also has a visible challenge when it comes to shortages but said the staff there were performing miracles on a daily basis to help patients.
She says when she would take her loved one in, she would have to queue for close to seven hours.
"You have to be here at six o'clock to wait in line to go fetch your card and you see patients in wheelchairs with limbs missing, some are bedridden while other older patients need help in the queues, I have waited up to 6-7 hours in a specific department," she added.
While she didn't divulge many details on her loved one's condition, she said that her relative needs to have surgery done at Provincial Hospital so they can be transferred to Livingstone Hospital for lifelong care.
She told the media that some patients need to meet certain minimum requirements to be able to qualify for life-saving unit work but if it's too late then they are sent home to die.
Asked whether this was the case for her relative, Shrosbree broke down and said she felt hopeless.
Meanwhile, the DA's Eastern Cape Shadow MEC for Health, Jane Cowley says the crisis emanates from the fact Department of Health has not paid its service providers that stopped supplying these hospitals with critical medical equipment.
"What we are saying is there are many things the department can do to get funding to these hospitals to support them because the doctors and nurses are willing! They are stretched to the limit because they are so understaffed and the Department of Health keeps using the excuse that they don't have the money because they are busy trying to sort out the medico-legal claims issue," Cowley added.
Cowley handed over a memorandum to Livingstone Hospital management with steps the party feels the department needs to take to alleviate the challenges facing health facilities.
