Hundreds of Soweto health workers not paid

20 April 2016

Hundreds of Community Health Workers (CHWs) in Soweto are in despair as they have not been paid since February this year.

I have received complaints about this from CHWs at the Chiawelo, Zola, Dobsonville, Tladi and Lillian Ngoyi clinics in Soweto.

They have been given various excuses as to why they were not paid their R2500 salary last month.

Last year they were also not paid for many months and received an apology from Gauteng Health MEC Qedani Mahlangu who blamed an administrative problem.

It is unclear whether the non-payment is because of the new R87 million contract awarded to SmartPurse Solutions Pty Ltd to take over the payment of CHWs.

The CHWs do valuable work that includes home-based care, delivering medicines to house-bound patients, and going door-to-door to assess the health status of households.

It is disappointing that yet again there is a payment problem that needs to be fixed as soon as possible.

Issued by Jack Bloom MPL, DA Gauteng Shadow Health MEC, 20 April 2016