Gauteng Health lies about achievements 

26 May 2016

This year's health budget of R37.4 billion is a healthy 9.5% increase over the budget last year.

The question is whether it will be spent effectively and efficiently.

Unfortunately, last year's budget spending had rather extreme underspends and overspends in the various departments.

There was R809 million underspent by District Health Services, R209 million unspent by Provincial Health Services, R146 million not spent by Emergency Medical Services, and R95 million unspent by Health Facilities Management.

On the other hand, R568 million was overspent by Central Hospital Services and R64 million by Administration.

The overall underspend was a whopping R738 million. 

These overspends and underspends show very poor budget control.

What is the use of a budget if you are not going to stick to it?

Mythical figures are given for ambulance response times at world class standards for Priority 1 patients picked up within 15 minutes.

I wish they would stop lying about the response times and actually run a decent ambulance service.

We often hear the famous words by Amical Cabral: "tell no lies and claim no easy victories", but this department tells plenty of lies.

We are told that the Steve Biko Academic Hospital is assessed as the best in the country, but here are some recent newspaper headlines about this hospital:  

- My dying mom was told: 'You're lazy not sick'.

- Hospital facing probe after unexplained deaths 

- 'Devils in white' gripes flooding in

- Horror of 'missing' patient who had died.

I have spent a lot of time this year checking out complaints at the Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Hospital.

There are ceiling leaks all over the place and shockingly dirty toilets.

The psychiatric ward there is a disgrace and should have been renovated two years ago, but an incompetent contractor failed to complete it.

The Gastro Department is desperately short of endoscopes to do stomach examinations. This means that possible cancer cases will wait many months before being diagnosed.

But every time I raise this, the department denies there is a problem with equipment at the Gastro Department.

Then there is the chaos of the relocation of mental patients from Life Healthcare Esidimeni where relatives are not informed where they are going, sometimes to inappropriate places.

And then there is the failed maintenance at hospitals because of the dysfunction of the Infrastructure Development Department.

The hospital security contracts were mired in corruption, yet implicated companies have still not been fired or criminally charged.

The two-year security contracts worth R265 million in total expire in September this year, but only 4 out of 22 companies have been terminated.

My general observation is that it is mostly lower level officials who get dismissed for fraud or corruption, but the big fish get away, perhaps because of their political connections.

Then we have ideological inspired projects like the 464 students we have sent overseas to Cuba at great cost to become doctors.

Before they even start they have to spend one year learning Spanish, and when they come back they have to do two years extra training to be accredited locally.

Surely we should rather spend the money expanding doctor training at our local universities?

I predict that just like the failed Folateng programme, this one will be abandoned too with much wasted money and destroyed false hope of the students we send to a foreign country.

Finally, let me remind members that in February 2007, Premier Mbhazima Shilowa first promised a health smart card for every patient.

If the Honourable Premier wants to know why I am sceptical of promises made in this house by ANC premiers, let him reflect why we still don't have an electronic patient management system nine years after it was announced.

Now we are told that all Gauteng hospitals and clinics will have electronic files by 2018.

I really do hope that this promise is indeed kept as I have been arguing for 20 years for an integrated health information system.

I will congratulate the MEC if she is the first Health MEC to do activity based costing and go completely electronic as we should expect in the modern world.

The Honourable MEC has said that we owe it to the people of Gauteng to set the bar higher, and that tough decisions should be taken to provide high quality, efficient and accessible health care to those whose only hope is public health care.

Yes, we must set the bar high, which is why we will not be supporting this budget.

Sick people in this province deserve better.

Issued by Jack Bloom, DA Gauteng Shadow MEC for Health, 26 May 2016