Chairperson, I move without notice:
That the Council -
(1) notes that more than 180 premature babies died at Mthatha's Nelson Mandela Academic Hospital since January 2010;
(2) further notes that a preliminary report found that the death of the babies was due to several factors, including -
a) a poor oxygen system;
b) concealed pregnancies among young mothers making it clinically impossible to administer an effective course of antiretroviral treatment;
c) repeated termination of pregnancy among young women; and
d) poor referral systems between the district hospitals where the babies were born and the Nelson Mandela Academic Hospital; and
(3) calls on the MEC for health in the Eastern Cape to take a firm stand against the management of the hospital and devise proper interventions to ensure that this situation never occurs in any of our hospitals in the province again.
Motion agreed to in accordance with section 65 of the Constitution.