Cape Town - More than 178000 children aged up to 5 years old have died in Department of Health facilities, mostly due to severe acute malnutrition, pneumonia and diarrhoea, since 2013.
The Western Cape saw 11 736 deaths of children in the age group over the same period. The national total is 178 445.
Furthermore, non-natural deaths of children aged up to 5 shot up to 2 199 in 2018 at state facilities nationally.
These figures, which focused on children’s deaths from January 2013 to December 2022, were presented by Health Minister Joe Phaahla in a Parliamentary reply to DA spokesperson on health, Michéle Clarke.
Phaahla said aggregated data indicated that common causes of deaths in children were diarrhoea and pneumonia, including the underlying causes such as severe and moderate acute malnutrition.
The data, gleaned from the districts’ health information system, suggests that 10 216 children aged under 5 had died due to pneumonia; 9 491 from diarrhoea; 1 410 from moderate acute malnutrition; and 11172 from severe acute malnutrition.
The State Forensic Pathology Service groups “unnatural deaths” as deaths that have occurred due to “violence and the consequences of the injuries” that result in death, such as murder or culpable homicide, suicide or accidents, including motor vehicle accidents.
Phaahla's figures indicate that 12 224 children died unnatural deaths. Broken down, the figures show that 2 452 unnatural deaths of children aged up to 5 in public health facilities were 2 452 in 2013; 2 496 in 2014; 2509 in 2015; 2364 in 2016; 204 in 2017; and 2 199 in 2018.
Phaahla, who sourced the figures from Statistics SA, Home Affairs and the SAPS, cautioned that the number of child deaths due to unnatural causes in public health facilities may not be accurate as “final causes are documented following the forensic report analysis”.
UDM treasurer-general Tandi Nontenja, who heads the party’s portfolio for women and children, said the government was embedded with the unions. She said that when a union “comrade” had done wrong, the government shied away from taking action because of political alliances.
“These figures show gross negligence from the government. I don’t see how the NHI (National Health Insurance) will resolve this because it’s coming from this particular government,” Nontenja said.
Clarke said viral respiratory diseases such as Covid-19 and tuberculosis thrived in public health facilities because government employees neglected standard hygiene practices.
This was “worsened” by hospitals and clinics that lacked effective surveillance and infection control measures.
“A study in neonatal wards in district and national hospitals revealed that 33% of patients caught pneumonia. It is important to note that more research needs to be done on hospital-associated infections (HAI) to accurately quantify the problem, which will also inform how its addressed,” Clarke said.
She said the DA had a number of suggestions to address malnutrition as a killer:
• Regular reviews of zero-rated basic food items.
• Aside from increasing the child grant to the food poverty line, the government should extend the grant to pregnant mothers to get nutritious food.
• Building partnerships within communities to support the development and distribution of health and nutritional information.
• Promote home and community food gardens to enhance household food security and well-being.
• Introduce nutrition intervention programmes in Early Childhood Development (ECD) programmes and improve nutrition among young children.
She said the National Health Insurance wouldn’t address SA’s myriad serious health-care concerns.
“And unless these concerns are addressed, the NHI will exacerbate the problems, some of which are severe medical staff shortages.
“Health care facilities have unsafe and inadequate infrastructure, because of maintenance and investment failures,” Clarke said.