Gauteng Health fails due to Eskom syndrome

24 February 2023

Note to Editors: Summary extract of Speech by DA MPL Jack Bloom in the debate on State of the Province Address.

The Honourable Premier observed that the public health system in Gauteng is the largest and the most significant in South Africa.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t say that it’s the best quality provincial health system because every year the Auditor General gives it a terrible report.

It’s been a problem department for every Gauteng premier, with endless promises of strategic task teams and turnarounds.

Our new premier devotes only one page in his speech to this critical department.

I agree with his advocacy of computerisation to fix long queues and improve efficiency, but as usual there is an appointed contractor with a shady history who won’t be able to provide the health information system that is needed.

It follows a long history of failed computerisation attempts. This includes the health smart card that former Health MEC Brian Hlongwa promised 15 years ago.

The sad truth is that this department doesn’t have the skills to modernise effectively.

There are still too many incompetent and corrupt people at the bloated head office.

Babita Deokaran tried to change things and she was murdered.

This department reminds me of Eskom. It’s what you get with many years of cadre deployment and the flourishing of internal criminal networks. The two seem to go together.

You can call it the Eskom syndrome. It’s very difficult to reverse because the political party that caused the disaster cannot be the one to fix the disaster.

There is a reason why the only health system that gets clean audits is in the one province not run by the ANC.

The cure for Eskom syndrome requires drastic action over a fairly long period of time.

A key ingredient in the cure is a different political party in charge which prioritises merit over cadre deployments, and ruthlessly weeds out the incompetents and the corrupt.

According to the Western Cape Health Department, it took them five to ten years to stabilise their finances so they have now enjoyed four clean audits in a row.

Perhaps the Honourable Premier had so little to say about health because he knows that his time in office will be too short to do anything meaningful.

The good news in that in less than 18 months the voters of this province will rid themselves of the party that gave us Eskom syndrome.

Issued by Jack Bloom, DA Gauteng Shadow Health MEC, 24 October 2023