Lawyers seize R310m from Gauteng Health bank accounts for medical negligence
12 February 2020
Lawyers acting for medical negligence victims have forced the Gauteng Health Department to pay out R310 million from 1 April last year to date by attaching the Department’s bank accounts.
This was revealed by the Department at a presentation yesterday to the Gauteng Legislature’s Health Committee.
The payments that were taken were for court-ordered settlements for negligence in Gauteng public hospitals, mostly brain damage to new-born babies.
The Department admitted that the root cause for the bank attachments was ‘non-payment of the court orders within the stipulated 30 days period due to unavailability to pay.’ Furthermore, the bank attachments ‘affect the cash flow availability of the department to provide services, mainly towards payment of service providers and processing of patient fees.’