Do not confuse basic premise of cause and effect

The chicken or the egg! Politicians like to confuse cause and effect. Take for instance Eastern Cape Premier Phumulo Masualle who this week revealed that service delivery in the health department was being hamstrung by litigation. And indeed, the health department paid out an unbelievable R250m in claims – most involving health malpractice – in just one year. That’s a quarter of a billion rand that could have been spent improving hospital infrastructure, upgrading clinics or filling vacant doctors’ posts.

The education department has similarly faced dozens of major court cases. These have involved parents litigating over corporal punishment and sexual abuse in schools, or class action type litigation involving dangerous school infrastructure, massive overcrowding, and filling of long-vacant teachers’ and administrative posts.

This has been costly to the state, which is almost always on the losing side. These are not frivolous issues people are litigating over. So what is the cause and what the effect?

Our constitution guarantees children a free basic education. This cannot happen if those entrusted with the care of our children abuse them with impunity or if they are forced to attend mud schools with dangerous pit latrines or there are not enough classrooms, adequate teachers or materials that enable them to learn.

Similarly, if our hospitals are too poorly equipped, or staff too demoralised by appalling work conditions or simply too uncaring to do their jobs, then the human cost is high. Pregnant women lose their babies, others are born with defects, people are misdiagnosed or even die due to neglect.

Cause and effect is simple logic and the clear conclusion is that service delivery is not failing because of litigation. Rather, people litigating government is a sure sign service delivery is failing.

There may well be corruption in the state attorney’s office, but even in the unlikely event that half the R250m paid out by the health department was due to corruption, the amount paid out due to medical negligence is way too much.

The human fallout from service delivery collapse in the two key areas of education and health is tragic. Masualle and his executive should be focusing on improved service delivery to decrease litigation rather than using the cost of litigation as an excuse for poor service delivery.

If our hospitals are too poorly equipped, staff too demoralised, or uncaring, the human cost is high