Chairperson,
I would like to dedicate my speech to all the nurses who sacrifice their personal lives; at times working 24 hours and who miss valuable time with their families in order to save lives. Their passion and dedication often go unnoticed and are often unappreciated.
The reality of the South African health sector is that too many people are still struggling to access basic healthcare services due to a lack of political will to intervene.
A total of R205.4 billion is spent on health in South Africa. This accounts for 12% of Government’s expenditure. The problem, however, is not the allocated budget, but the mismanagement; lack of accountability; poor planning and instances of wide spread corruption.
Government is shamelessly wasting money that should be used to provide essential medical services to the most vulnerable people in our society, who have no other alternative.
Sadly, our Provincial Health Departments are failing. So much so that underperforming health departments have been placed under administration. However, we all know that this is only to exonerate ineffective politicians from accountability.
What really happens when a Department is under administration? I ask this because North West Health, which is currently under administration, still fails to deliver health care to its citizens.
Who is held accountable when a Department is under administration? Is it the Minister or the MEC?
In most provinces, we have major shortages of nurses and doctors, meaning that patient care is compromised. For example, in the North West, since 2016, there has been a moratorium on 1 275 vacant posts.
On an oversight visit to the in Tshepong Hospital, the DA found that medical staff was overworked.
On another oversight, this time in Motlaba Clinic in Limpopo, the DA found that there is only one doctor who comes twice a month, there is no qualified pharmacy personnel and that nurses have to examinations and do dispensary.
The entire Health Department is placed under massive strain due to maladministration and corruption, one such instance is the overcharging and tender irregularities involving Buthelezi EMS in the North West and Free State Provincial Health Departments.
The Buthelezi EMS services has netted in more than R15 million from the Free State Health Department due to backdated price increases. This, after Buthelezi EMS had been paid more than R600 million under this contract.
Documents reveal how these increases were signed off within 5 days, when Free State Health was seemingly temporarily taken out of administration through a decree by Premier Ace Magashule.
According to doctors and nurses, the service offered by Buthelezi EMS is substandard as staff allegedly do not have the required qualifications nor experience to deliver emergency medical care.
Furthermore, almost 40 brand new state ambulances have been idle for months while the North West Health Department spends millions on private ambulances every month. In addition to this, two private companies were paid millions a month to ferry patients.
Buthelezi EMS was paid around R10 million monthly, while High Care EMS was paid about R4 million a month on two ambulances transporting some 400 patients in the Ganyesa area.
Then there is Mediosa, a Gupta-linked company, which was paid R30 million and a further R180 million by North West Health before its mobile clinic even hit the road to rural areas. This, while other service providers – which had done work for the Department – were told they would only be paid in the new financial year.
Honourable Chairperson,
While the Department has continuously made assurances about the National Health Insurance (NHI) and it has allocated additional funding, there has been a major reduction in the number of indicators in the 2018/19 APP regarding NHI.
NHI pilot projects are facing major concerns.
Doctors and pharmacy assistants contracted to assist the project have allegedly not received salaries from the Department’s payroll administrator.
We also saw how a group of 30 doctors, who are reportedly unemployed in Limpopo after their NHI contracts were not renewed.
It is clear that the NHI pilot projects are failing and that the ANC’s proposed health insurance is not a feasible plan, as it is clearly doing more harm than good to our existing health system.
If the Department was truly serious about universal health care it would have worked with the private sector in order to improve the quality of public health care which is failing millions of South Africans.