Minister acknowledges that he has no idea what the state of negligence is in state hospitals
28 February 2017
The minister of health, Dr. Aaron Motsoaledi, and his department do not have any information available about the number of people who die in South Africa’s state hospitals as a result of negligence, and actually have no idea what the extent is of negligence in the country’s state hospitals, Adv. Anton Alberts, FF Plus’ spokesperson on Health, says.
Adv. Alberts says this shocking state of affairs came to light in a reply to a parliamentary question about the issue.
He said what makes the situation even worse is the fact that even after the national outrage about the deaths of more than 100 psychiatric patients, there is still no attempt on the side of the minister or the department to put a system in place to monitor the negligence in state hospitals.
The main questions were how many people have died since 2009 due to the negligence of medical and other personnel in state hospitals, in which hospitals these deaths occurred and what the nature of the negligence had been.
To this and other questions, the response was merely that these incidents would have resulted in disciplinary and legal action, and that the information should be enquired from the authorities who deal with it.
“It is absolutely shocking that the minister acknowledges that he has no idea how many people die in state hospitals due to negligence. It is simply impossible to be in the dark about such a serious matter.
The department is now only busy trying to find the information, as a result of my question. The department should surely know how many claims for negligence had been settled by the department? But clearly, it does not know either.
“It is amazing that the department of health now has to find answers from the department of Justice as to what is happening in its own hospitals. How can the department improve its service delivery if it does not know how big the problem of negligence in hospitals is?
“It is clear that the department is being blindly managed into the abyss. Without any information, you cannot make any management adjustments.
“It is no wonder that so many people die in state hospitals and under the supervision of the department and provincial departments. And tragically nobody knows what the true extent of the problem is,” Adv. Alberts said.
Issued by Anton Alberts, FF Plus parliamentary spokesperson: Health, 28 February 2017
