Gauteng Health has too many Head Office staff

30 July 2018  

The Gauteng Health Department has 1350 head office staff, which is down from 1785 staff in 2010 and 1928 staff in 2015, but this is still top heavy and inefficient.

These figures are revealed by Gauteng Health MEC Gwen Ramokgopa in a written reply to my questions in the Gauteng Legislature.

According to Ramokgopa, the vast majority of head office staff are administrative (1018), and also includes 191 allied professionals, 47 nursing and 45 management staff.

She says that “there is a decrease due to prioritisation of frontline and district services.”

I agree with the downsizing of head office staff which needs to go further to cut out redundant staff and ensure that productive people are directly involved in health service delivery.

The head office has too often been a dumping ground for useless people who only have jobs because of cadre deployment.

I am also concerned that three senior management positions are currently filled in an acting capacity.

This long-ailing department needs skilled top leadership with a lean and efficient team to make the changes to fully recover from the rampant corruption when Brian Hlongwa was Health MEC from 2006 to 2009.

Issued by Jack Bloom, DA Gauteng Shadow Health MEC, 30 July 2018