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Tuesday, 26 September 2017 16:42

In our Tuesday roundup, see summaries
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related stories that have appeared since
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Wednesday, 20 September 2017 15:17

In our Wednesday roundup, see summaries
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Tuesday, 19 September 2017 15:49

In our Tuesday roundup, see summaries
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Monday, 18 September 2017 15:18

In our Monday roundup, see summaries
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Monday, 18 September 2017 00:32

Sunday Independent reports that all Gauteng health workers will be paid on time despite the sheriff of the court’s warrant of execution to attach 14 departmental bank accounts.  This is according to Gauteng MEC for Health, Dr Gwen Ramokgopa.

The order is for the payment of more than R30 million for medical negligence lawsuits brought against the department.

In recent weeks, the sheriff attached desks, chairs and computers from the department to force payment of R6.2m for medical negligence cases.

The action was brought by O Joubert Attorneys on behalf of a child who was brain-damaged when she was born at Pholosong Hospital in Tsakane in December 2009.

Gauteng department of health spokesperson Prince Hamnca said:  “There are 2,040 old claims which date as far back as 2003.  These equate to the value of R16,298,310,713.30 (R16.3bn) and there are 170 new claims for 2017-18 which equate to R1,572,446,766.12 (R1.5bn).”  

Last week, the sheriff served the department with a warrant of execution to attach 14 bank accounts relating to four medical negligence cases for children who sustained brain damage at birth and are represented by O Joubert Attorneys.

Hamnca also confirmed that Telkom has cut off the department’s telephone lines because of non-payment of bills.  “We can confirm that the landlines at central office have not been functional as result of payment related issues.  The department has started discussions with Telkom to resolve the matter and we will be meeting with Telkom before the end of this week to present a payment plan.  The department would like to apologise to the public for the inconvenience caused,” Hamnca added.

Asked how the department would pay its employees with its bank accounts frozen, Ramokgopa said there was no way her employees would not be paid.  “All our employees are going to be paid on time and there is no threat whatsoever.  There are people, including the opposition (parties), that want to say to South Africans, you (the department) are not good enough and your systems are not good enough.  So we would like to assure South Africans that, even though we have inherited financial problems in litigation claims as well as accruals, we have made sure the budget that is meant to look after our patients is allocated to various hospitals and clinics.  We are committed to making sure those funds are used to save lives,” Ramokgopa said.  

The Gauteng department of health’s financial crisis has also had a heavy impact on staff members who deal with patients on a day-to-day basis.  A nurse from Leratong Hospital in Mogale City said the nurse-to-patient ratio was one of the problems they had to deal with.  “I work in a medical department where we have 40 patients and there is just four of us working here,” said Valentia Tshabalala (not her real name).

Tshabalala said the hospital runs short of linen and at times is short of medication.  “We don’t even have enough beds.  There are certain wards which are beyond the capacity they are supposed to be taking in.  There are patients sleeping on the floor because there aren’t extra mattresses.  This has resulted in incidents that could have been prevented if we had the workforce and the resources, she said.

A Baragwanath Hospital employee attested to the shortage of staff, pointing out that there are 120 pharmacy staff for the eight pharmacies on the premises.  These pharmacies serve in excess of 60,000 out-patients a month and an average of 2,000 a day, excluding in-patients.

Although the hospital has put in place various plans to keep afloat, with the department focusing attention on Baragwanath Hospital because of the high numbers of patients it deals with, there are still infrastructure problems, security scares and the heavy workload of the nurses, said acting chief executive Dr Sifiso Maseko.

On Wednesday, Ramokgopa and Gauteng Premier David Makhura paid a surprise visit to the Steve Biko Hospital in Pretoria, where the hospital’s lifts were out of service for weeks.  At one stage only one out of 28 lifts in the hospital was working.  It had to be shared by patients, staff, visitors, food, waste and dead bodies.

Ramokgopa said the issue of how the department was going to deal with these financial challenges was before the executive council because the health department could not handle it alone.  “And there is a special committee that is being chaired by the MEC for finance which is advising the executive council and the premier on the resolution of these issues,” she said.

Ramakgopa conceded that she was concerned about the low morale of her staff after furniture was attached, the telephone lines cut off and the ongoing bad publicity the department was getting because of the financial problems.  “It has been my duty to balance the morale of the staff to improve, but also to ensure that they appreciate that we are all public servants and we need to be accountable,” she said.

The original of this report by Roland Mpofu and Amanda Maliba is on page 2 of Sunday Independent of 17 September 2017

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