Dysfunctional NW Health Department faces R4 billion in medical malpractice claims

7 August 2019

The Democratic Alliance (DA) in the North West will write to the MEC for Health, Madoda Sambatha, requesting that he conducts an in-depth review of the Province’s public health system and establish a turn-around strategy to address the escalating operational challenges that the Department faces.

This follows revelations that the dysfunctional North West Department of Health faces medical malpractice claims amounting to R4 billion, with an additional 500 cases currently under investigation.

The number of medical malpractice cases in North West increased from a mere 53 in 2016 to a staggering 500 cases in 2019. This is a clear indication that the North West public health system has effectively collapsed and that the ANC is totally incapable of improving the situation.

North West public hospitals and clinics are severely understaffed and under-resourced, patients are forced to wait long hours to see doctors while some are forced to sleep on the floor and medicine shortages are common.

The current state of affairs in the North West Health Department is a direct result of years of ANC mismanagement through deals such as the Gupta-linked Mediosa company which was paid more than R30 million without rendering any services.

Where the DA governs in the Western Cape, we have digitised patient records to increase efficiency and reduce waiting time. In the DA-governed Western Cape we also have the highest doctor-per-resident ratio in the country to ensure that every patient receives quality health services. Public hospitals in the Western Cape continue to offer private-sector quality health care to all those who need it, under DA governance.

The DA has remarkably improved the quality of public health services in the Western Cape since taking office from the ANC in 2009 and, as such, the DA in North West will table a concrete plan of action, informed by our experience in government, in the North West Provincial Legislature, detailing key interventions necessary to improve the public health system here.

The DA will do whatever it can, making use of all legislative mechanisms available to us, to work towards improving the health system in the province.

Issued by Gavin Edwards, DA North West Spokesperson on Health, 7 August 2019