---
title: "38 Dora Nginza doctors warn of ‘unacceptable risk’ after mother’s death"
description: "Thirty-eight doctors at Dora Nginza Hospital in Gqeberha have collectively warned that conditions in their obstetrics and gynaecology department pose an ‘unacceptable risk’ to mothers and babies. In a frank letter, they detail failing electrical infrastructure, broken resuscitation equipment, staff shortages and cancelled operations."
type: "NewsArticle"
publisher: "Daily Maverick"
site: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za"
section: "BREAKING POINT"
author: "Angela Daniels"
author_url: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/author/angela-daniel/"
canonical_url: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2026-09-06-38-dora-nginza-doctors-warn-of-unacceptable-risk-after-mothers-death/"
published: "2026-09-06T20:41:09"
lang: "en-ZA"
word_count: 1910
---

# 38 Dora Nginza doctors warn of ‘unacceptable risk’ after mother’s death

> Thirty-eight doctors at Dora Nginza Hospital in Gqeberha have collectively warned that conditions in their obstetrics and gynaecology department pose an ‘unacceptable risk’ to mothers and babies. In a frank letter, they detail failing electrical infrastructure, broken resuscitation equipment, staff shortages and cancelled operations.

By Angela Daniels · Published 6 September 2026, 22:41 SAST

## Key points
- Thirty‑eight obstetrics and gynaecology doctors at Dora Nginza Hospital in Gqeberha warned that repeated electrical failures, broken resuscitation kit and theatre staff shortages have left mothers and newborns at “unacceptable risk”, with elective C‑sections and cancer operations repeatedly cancelled.
- The clinicians said infrastructure and equipment problems contributed to a maternal collapse and subsequent death on 5 July — citing non‑working plugs, a failing ambu bag and no emergency blood — a claim the provincial health department disputes while saying repairs are under way.
- The doctors have demanded an independent assessment, a written action plan with named responsibilities and timelines; the department says it already has an intervention programme but clinicians call this insufficient.
- Doctors warn chronic failures are harming patients and training, and could force further escalation.

## Content

Thirty-eight doctors do not normally sign a letter calling conditions in their own department an “unacceptable risk” to mothers and babies — not unless they have reached the point where they no longer believe the system is working.

But that’s exactly what happened at Dora Nginza Hospital in Gqeberha, where almost all the doctors in the obstetrics and gynaecology department signed a letter setting out the deteriorating conditions: women booked for elective Caesareans waiting up to two weeks, pregnant women sleeping on chairs, and women with gynaecological cancers having operations postponed because there are no theatre staff.

Ten days before they signed the letter, a 28-year-old woman haemorrhaged after giving birth and went into cardiac arrest. She was resuscitated but died later that evening.

![Andisa-DoraNginza](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/lFDvuKIF3cWyaXERhDDLjHfXFJQ=/200x100/smart/filters:strip_exif\(\)/file/attachments/orphans/DSC_8868copy_121915.jpg)

*Nurses went on strike in April over shortage of staff at Dora Nginza Hospital. (Photo: Deon Ferreira)*

The doctors said infrastructure failures “contributed to circumstances during the resuscitation of a critically ill patient in which essential equipment could not be used because of the lack of functioning electrical outlets”. They said this “resulted in a maternal death”.

“Such situations present an unacceptable risk to maternal and neonatal safety,” the doctors wrote.

The Eastern Cape department of health does not agree with their assessment. Its internal investigation, it says, found no causal link between the death and a “power failure”.

Dora Nginza Hospital provides specialist services to the entire western region of the Eastern Cape. Because Nelson Mandela Bay has no district hospital, [the Public Protector found last year, it is forced to serve at once as a clinic, a district hospital, a regional hospital and a tertiary centre](https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2025-06-01-dora-nginza-hospital-ec-health-department-breaking-the-law/) — particularly for obstetrics, gynaecology and paediatrics.

![Rolene Wagner talks with reporter Sean Christie in her childhood home in Lotus River, where her journey from competitive swimmer to healthcare innovator began. Photo: Jay Caboz](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/gK83L0owiwABURinLvE6PAT398E=/200x100/smart/filters:strip_exif\(\)/file/dailymaverick/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/P9-Rolene-Wagner-_Jay-Caboz_019-1-2048x1365-1.jpg)

*Dr Rolene Wagner. (Photo: Jay Caboz)*

The letter was sent on 15 July to the then head of the Eastern Cape department of health, Dr Rolene Wagner, and was copied to the hospital’s chief executive, the deputy director-general for hospital services, the chair of the legislature’s health portfolio committee, Health MEC Ntandokazi Capa, Premier Oscar Mabuyane and the health ombud.

The answers from the premier, the MEC and the Dora Nginza officials came back as a single consolidated response, sent by Capa’s spokesperson, Camagwini Mavovana.

The doctors said their letter had been met with silence, and none of the recipients had replied to them. Again, the health department disagrees. It said the MEC was only copied into the correspondence on 31 July, that she intervened once she had it, and that two virtual meetings were subsequently held.

Neither meeting was with the doctors who wrote the letter, they said.

### The core of the letter

The doctors’ letter paints a disturbing picture of conditions in the hospital’s obstetrics and gynaecology department.

“In several oncology cases, patients have returned with advanced, inoperable disease after repeated postponements because theatre staffing was unavailable,” the letter reads.

The letter, seen by Daily Maverick, has 38 signatures, but the doctors are not being identified because they fear reprisals.

![Dora Nginza Hospital signage on 10 April 2026. (Photo: Andisa Bonani)](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/m4EIt-z-Pp1zl5x37jOYicizX_Q=/200x100/smart/filters:strip_exif\(\)/file/attachments/orphans/Dora_419620.jpeg)

*Dora Nginza Hospital. (Photo: Andisa Bonani)*

The doctors describe a department where scheduled Caesarean sections and gynaecological operations are repeatedly cancelled, including oncology and urology procedures. They said electrical failures in the theatres and labour ward had made critical equipment unreliable or unusable, while shortages of nursing staff, essential theatre supplies and poor theatre support had compounded the problem.

Among the equipment affected, they said, were IV infusion pumps, CTG monitors (cardiotocographs), incubators, ventilators and resuscitation equipment.

They asked for four things: an independent assessment of the obstetrics and gynaecology service, a written action plan, named responsibilities with timelines, and regular progress reporting. They also asked for a reply within two weeks.

### The death on 5 July

Clinical notes from that afternoon, contained in an internal case review seen by Daily Maverick, record that the ambu bag, or manual resuscitator, from the labour ward was not working, and that an ambulance crew assisted with a defibrillator, an ambu bag and electrocardiogram (ECG) stickers. The notes also record that a system failure meant uncrossmatched blood could not be issued, and that by late afternoon there was no emergency blood at the blood bank.

The next morning, a clinician listed the state of the labour ward’s equipment. The plugs were not working. The defibrillator was not working. The ambu bag was falling apart. The oxygen cylinder was empty. There were fewer than three vials of adrenaline in the trolley, and the trolley had not been cleaned. There were no ECG leads, no working monitors, no resuscitation board, no ventilator and no device to keep a patient warm.

![(File pic) Two premature babies were stolen from the neonatal ward in Dora Nginza Hospital on Tuesday night. Dora Nginza Hospital is the main maternity ward for the western part of the Eastern Cape. (Photo: Shiraaz Mohammed)](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/WROC58nlh23HgfgNIbWrp_pxes4=/200x100/smart/filters:strip_exif\(\)/file/dailymaverick/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/MC-ECDOH-Estelle.jpeg)

*Dora Nginza Hospital’s neonatal ward. (Photo: Shiraaz Mohammed)*

### An extension cord in the delivery room

For about six weeks, the doctors said, an extension cord ran from a plug in a common area into one of the delivery rooms. It was the only way to get power to resuscitate a newborn baby and keep the baby warm. It ended only when doctors arranged for an uninterruptible power supply unit to be moved from the labour ward theatre onto the ward.

The department says the electrical faults have been repaired: 122 normal plugs and 116 red plugs were replaced across the NICU, neonatal high care, premature unit and labour ward, and tested and confirmed operational. Medical gas repairs were completed on 27 July, while work on backup power units was expected to finish on 28 August.

The doctors are not convinced. “You’re told it’s fixed and it’s not fixed,” one said. “We get told it’s done, and then we get a problem coming up two weeks later.”

On a recent Sunday, they say, the power failed and the generator did not start. Theatres were without power for a full day and a portable generator was hired that afternoon. Repair work was finished about a week and a half later.

The doctors say theatre lists are cancelled because there is nobody to staff them. Dora Nginza Hospital is configured for four theatres; nursing shortages mean three can be staffed, and on days when staff do not come in, two. The theatre matron retired at the end of November and the post was now held in an acting capacity, one doctor said.

![Angela-Dora](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/DrC9J0UsSufSjm97nEBJle4L3lE=/200x100/smart/filters:strip_exif\(\)/file/attachments/orphans/DSC_8920copy_895382.jpg)

*In April, workers – consisting of mostly nurses – went on strike over the shortage of staff at Dora Nginza Hospital. (Photo: Deon Ferreira)*

One of the doctors said that a little over a week ago, the hospital ran out of pethidine and was giving women morphine instead, and had no anti-inflammatories that could be given rectally to patients unable to swallow.

“We ran out of basic analgesics. That’s not expensive,” the doctor said.

The doctors also describe a theatre with only boiling water, “you can’t wash your hands”, and paint flaking from theatre ceilings. “You’re not supposed to have paint that chips off and falls onto the patient,” one said.

They say written approaches to hospital management go unanswered. When they do get an answer, they say, it is a request that they solve the problem themselves.

“When you ask what management’s take on the whole thing is, it’s like, ‘Well, you must tell us what to do,’” one said. “And I’m like, ‘I can tell you to a certain point what to do, but these are operational issues that you should be solving, not me.’

“Everything’s crisis management, and only when it’s made public knowledge, and we start asking questions, do things start.”

The hospital’s infrastructure post has been held in an acting capacity since the manager left, the doctors say. The department says an infrastructure manager, appointed on contract, starts on 1 October.

Medical students in their fourth, fifth and sixth years sit in on the department’s meetings and hear all of it, the doctors say.

“Who would want to stay in the Eastern Cape when the situation is like this?” one asked.

![A health worker holds envelopes with x rays while a patient lies under a blanket in a passage at Dora Nginza Provincial Hospital. (Photo / Shiraaz Mohamed)](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/gtLo-eXUXuavP_ZE2pkpvqTJLO4=/200x100/smart/filters:strip_exif\(\)/file/dailymaverick/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/IMG_0637.jpeg)

*File photo from 2023: A patient lies under a blanket in a passage at Dora Nginza Provincial Hospital. (Photo / Shiraaz Mohamed)*

### The department’s answer

The department said its response to Dora Nginza began before the letter arrived. The hospital “was already identified by the Department as a special intervention site, with a defined intervention plan and programme of action”, it said. A task team for the Nelson Mandela Bay district was established in June.

“The Department’s response to the pressures at Dora Nginza is therefore neither new nor reactive,” it said.

![Angela-Dora](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/eOB6St6YbOZC2AqzE__yAbPPfdM=/200x100/smart/filters:strip_exif\(\)/file/dailymaverick/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/capa-6.jpg)

*Eastern Cape Health MEC Ntandokazi Capa. (Photo: Luvuyo Mehlwana / Spotlight)*

The biggest part of the plan is [the conversion of Empilweni Hospital into a district hospital](https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2026-04-13-dora-nginza-hospital-crisis-forces-eastern-cape-government-to-repurpose-tb-hospital/) — at R32-million for the first phase, an estimated R210.36-million in total — to take level-one patients away from Dora Nginza and Livingstone hospitals. Half of that first phase, R16-million, is provided for in 2026/27. At Dora Nginza, the department counts more than R100-million in completed, current and planned work.

The department says it is also strengthening community health centres and referral routes so fewer patients reach Dora Nginza. One of the doctors said there was no sign of it: “Humansdorp is probably our biggest problem in terms of the complications we get from there every single day.”

The department also lists appointments: six medical officers from 3 August, and from 1 September two more medical officers, 10 general professional nurses, six speciality nurses, two psychiatric speciality nurses, one theatre speciality nurse, one paediatric speciality nurse, two nursing assistants who are advanced midwives, two enrolled nurses and three enrolled nursing assistants. A clinical psychologist, two speciality operational managers and 23 general assistants are still being recruited.

“That’s a joke,” one of the doctors said. “As much as they’re employing people, that’s a drop in the ocean.”

The doctor said the theatre had lost four scrub sisters, on top of the matron who retired in November. One more hire, the doctor said, would not solve anything.

The doctors say Empilweni cannot proceed as described because the hospital has not been gazetted as a district hospital, and until it is, the infrastructure changes needed cannot be made. The department confirms it is “progressing in the formal processes required for Empilweni to be gazetted”, but says work has already begun: contractors have been appointed, and the site for fast-track renovations to Themba Ward was handed over on 3 August.

The department also says the Caesarean backlog was brought to zero as of 28 August. Asked about this, the doctors said: “It’s a yes and a no.”

They said the backlog came down partly because elective Caesareans were done at other hospitals, partly because other lists were cancelled to fit them in, and partly by running elective cases on the emergency list in the evenings.

The departments full response [can be read here](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/attachments/2997/Healthdepartmentresponse_235113.pdf).

Ntombizodwa Kobuwe, of the Office of the Health Ombud, confirmed the office registered the complaint on 15 July under case reference 70385. It is still deciding the scope of any investigation. Depending on complexity, an investigation may take up to 24 months.

### Completely at odds

The department says the doctors’ concerns “are being taken seriously and have been incorporated into the Department’s continuing work, but they must be understood within the context of an intervention programme that predates the letter”.

The doctors say they’ve heard it all before. One of them said they were generally the kind of person who makes a plan and gets on with it.

“I’m coming to the end of my tether,” the doctor said. “I don’t know how many more plans I can make.” **DM**