Private wards at Joburg Hospital to offer more services despite losing millions

12 June 2017

The Folateng private wards at the Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Hospital (CMJH) are going to offer more services despite operating at a loss of R12.6 million last year as well as being unable to collect R51.3 million in outstanding patient fees.

This is revealed by Gauteng Health MEC Gwen Ramokgopa in a written reply to my questions in the Gauteng Legislature.

According to Ramokgopa, the Folateng wards at CMJH are still operating even though the National Health Minister complained about them because "there is no formal communication directed to the Province about the closing down of Folateng. The statement made was that we need to utilize the available beds, whenever there is an overflow of state patients, which is currently happening."

She said that 2721 private patients were treated last year at the CMJH Folateng unit, generating a total income of R20 043 680, but the total costs were R32 677 528, which amounts to a loss of R12 633 884.

Furthermore, R51 681 703 is outstanding in patient and other fees.

I suspect that this money will have to be written off as has happened with uncollected fees for the entire Folateng operation which started in 2002 and expanded to four hospitals.

Ramokgopa discloses for the first time in her reply that an outstanding amount of R569 million was written off for all the Folateng units.

This is a colossal amount which shows how misguided these wards are as they were meant to make a profit to subsidize private patients but instead make huge losses  because of inefficiency and the non-collection of patient fees.

But incredibly, Ramokgopa wants to expand the services instead of shutting the whole thing down.

She says "there is a plan to add new service packages such as Ophthalmology, Cardiology, ENT, Trauma, Maternity/O&B and Travel Clinic which will assist in generating income."

This mad scheme should stop. The Department should stop losing money with the private wards and instead use them to provide a better service to state patients.

Issued by Jack Bloom, DA Gauteng Shadow Health MEC, 12 June 2017