MBABANE – The Ministry of Health has issued a stern warning to health professionals against shutting down operations in public health facilities, labelling such actions as illegal.

Principal Secretary (PS) in the Ministry of Health, Khanyakwezwe Mabuza, stated the ministry has received reports of health professionals leaving patients stranded. “No one has the right to close down a hospital,” he asserted.

Addressing concerns about a lack of medicines and drug supplies, Mabuza clarified: “That does not warrant a shutdown of the facility, because the doctor can still make a prescription for the patient to get the drug elsewhere.”

 He further explained that even if one specific drug is out of stock, other necessary medications may still be available to assist the patient.

When questioned about lengthy meetings held by nurses, doctors and support staff while patients wait unattended, Mabuza emphasised that all meetings must be sanctioned by hospital management and conducted in a manner that does not affect patients.

“If these meetings go on and on and are not sanctioned by the management, we will consider such to be a go-slow strike,” Mabuza warned.

The ministry’s Communications Officer Nsindiso Tsabedze, underscored the illegality of operational shutdowns. He said some patients could find relief psychologically after meeting the doctor.

“To some patients, just meeting the doctor and having him inspect you, could be enough therapy,” he remarked.

The ministry engaged the media following a series of meetings by professional staff at Mbabane Government Hospital (MGH), where they sought solutions to shortages of drugs, medical supplies, staff, security and other essentials. During these MGH meetings, patients were observed waiting exhaustively, with some eventually returning home, and entire blocks of treatment and examination rooms in the Outpatient Department were locked. Only patients in wards reportedly received assistance from a limited number of nurses.

Mabuza announced that the ministry would introduce a customer care point in hospitals for patients to lodge complaints about a lack of attention. The PS acknowledged that the ministry had received two or three petitions from healthcare professionals and affirmed that efforts were underway to resolve the reported shortages.

“We acknowledged the issues on these petitions. Some of them may not be true, but we appreciate that the staff reached out to the ministry to have these issues resolved,” he said.

Meanwhile, Tsabedze noted that despite Monday’s meetings at MGH, the ministry had been alerted to another meeting planned for yesterday. He said that was a cause for concern because patients were being affected.

“We gathered from the media that the concern is that there are no medical supplies and decided to address this issue,” he concluded.

That’s not situation on the ground –  journos

MBABANE – Journalists expressed frustration with Ministry of Health officials yesterday, stating that government’s pronouncements on drug availability did not align with the reality on the ground in public health facilities.

Following an hour-long briefing by Principal Secretary (PS) Khanyakwezwe Mabuza and Communications Officer Nsindiso Tsabedze, who detailed government interventions to ensure drug supplies, journalists felt unable to derive a coherent news angle.

They highlighted that hospitals and clinics visibly remain without adequate drugs, and public health workers are openly frustrated. The information provided by the officials, scribes noted, was not new.

Print journalists voiced particular concern that the ministry’s affirmations directly contradicted the narrative shared by health professionals. “Tell us, what is the story to be derived from this press conference? I don’t even know what to report to my newsroom about this press conference,” a journalist directly asked.

A TV journalist appealed to the PS to organise a round-table meeting including both ministry officials and frontline health professionals. “We want to hear both sides of the story, after which we will then decide the missing link in this whole equation of medical supplies,” the journalist pleaded.

When directly asked if health professionals were lying by insisting on drug and medical supply shortages, PS Mabuza conceded he could not say they were.

He admitted to personally encountering a doctor who was unable to operate on a patient due to a lack of medical supplies.

“What we are saying is that government is not sitting idle, but doing something to arrest the shortage,” he concluded.