Gauteng Health legal unit grossly understaffed

14 August 2018

The Gauteng Health Department spent R94 million on private legal firms last year, but its own legal unit is grossly understaffed, with 10 out of 26 positions vacant and lawyers handling 300 cases each.

This is revealed by Gauteng Health MEC Gwen Ramokgopa in a written reply to my questions in the Gauteng Legislature.

She says that the vacancies are due to “restructuring of the Legal Services Directorate and completion of the post-filling processes.”

Ramokgopa admits that the understaffing “affects the Unit greatly, in terms of ensuring that cases are prepared well in time, work is at the acceptable standard and presented to the MEC and HOD timeously for approval of mandates.”

I am very concerned that each of the Department’s lawyers handles about 300 cases, many of which are medical negligence cases where huge compensation amounts are claimed. There is no way that they can give decent attention to each case, some of which are fraudulent.

Furthermore, poor management has led to 6 legal officers resigning in the last year.

The Department should not be spending R94 million a year on private lawyers when most legal work could be done in-house.

I also suspect corruption in the use of private legal firms that are probably grossly overcharging.

The Democratic Alliance calls for a high-calibre, fully-staffed legal unit to handle all health legal matters speedily and cost-effectively, including the avalanche of medical negligence claims.

Issued by Jack Bloom, DA Gauteng Shadow Health MEC, 14 August 2018