Grim picture of Gauteng health department painted

THE National Treasury has confirmed in Parliament that families of psychiatric patients who died in the Life Esidimeni tragedy have not been paid.

The Treasury also painted a picture of a poor state of finances in the department of health in Gauteng, with hundreds of millions of rand overspent, and staff appointed without a budget for hiring.

But the Finance MEC in Gauteng, Barbara Creecy, told the select committee on finance in the National Council of Provinces yesterday her officials were addressing the problems in the health department.

She said premier David Makhura had also appointed a task team from his cabinet to deal with the problems. Michael Rammabi of the National Treasury told the select committee they had a number of concerns about the department. “It’s the Life Esidimeni issue… the families have not been paid. The department appointed more than 2 000 employees without a budget. They overspent by R900 million,” said Rammabi.

He said the number of staff being employed without there being funds for their hiring was being reduced.“The headcount is starting to stabilise, and the numbers have been reduced by 1 300.

“In the last seven years the department of health has had five accounting officers, which creates instability.” Rammabi said the department had overspent by R2 billion, and he attributed this to instability.

Creecy said Makhura would announce the hiring of a new head of the department of health soon. She said this would be in addition to the recent appointment of a new chief financial officer.

Rammabi said adding to problems was that irregular expenditure in the health department amounted to R9bn. In addition to this, medical claims against the department totalled R22bn. The department would have to defend these claims in court.

Creecy said they were auditing the medical claims and would decide which ones they would defend.

This issue was raised in Parliament last year, with all nine provinces complaining about an increase in medical negligence claims.

Prior to this, National Treasury said medical claims had increased nationally from R28bn to R43bn. It warned the amount would increase.

Creecy said they were intent on getting things right in the department.

“In June, premier Makhura appointed an executive committee to work on the department of health. I chair that committee and I am joined by MEC for Health Gwen Ramokgopa and MEC for Co-operative Governance Uhuru Moiloa,” she said.

“We set up six workstreams. The first one was on financial management.

“We can’t have a situation where health spends money it doesn’t have.”

Creecy said the department had to employ people it needed to avoid overspending.

“If for some reason you have to absorb people you have to make appropriate adjustments and that is what led to the burgeoning of accruals.”

Rammabi also said there was a decline in the number of medical specialists in Gauteng.

In a separate issue, he told the select committee that the department of education in Gauteng had overspent by R900m.