Health MEC Sindiswa Gomba admits negligence claims draining public purse
But litigation isn't hindering Covid-19 response, says Gomba
Medico-legal claims are draining the health department and threatening to collapse the department, MEC Sindiswa Gomba said on Tuesday.
Her admission comes after the Daily Dispatch reported that in one of many civil claims, the department was being sued for R34.1m after a 15-year-old girl gave birth to a cerebral palsy baby, allegedly because she gave birth naturally instead of having a caesarean section because of her small physique.
Gomba and premier Oscar Mabuyane were updating the media on work done by government in the fight against the coronavirus in Bhisho on Tuesday morning.
The Eastern Cape had recorded 82,578 confirmed cases of Covid-19 cases, 76,866 recoveries and 2,266 deaths by print deadline on Tuesday.
“The money from our equitable share is tampered with in a negative way because of litigation,” Gomba said.
“Health in doing its work will never run away from ligation because health will always be exposed to mistakes, some not
necessarily about negligence.
“We are now looking at a case where we have assessed the ability of the department to take on board the caring of that patient such that the money is not a lump sum but is staggered in terms of the life of the patient, and that will assist because most services will be rendered
by the department,” she said.
In January DA MPL Jane Cowley said the department faced a contingent liability of R29bn at the beginning of this financial year.
However, Gomba said the medico-legal claims had not affected the R2.5bn budget allocation for the Covid-19 response
in the province.
“Litigation hampers the success of the department because money is not budgeted for as a contingency.
“Covid-19 has a grant for all provinces and those amounts are only for Covid-related issues.”
Mabuyane said they were doing
their best with the money they had to improve the quality of health services.
“The healthcare system has been crippled over time by this, that is why there are concerns about it.
“Work is being done by our teams set up to deal with this and intervention made to make
sure that we contest every single claim that is put against the government in any court of law to try and recover on that.”
Turning his attention to Covid-19, Mabuyane announced that the State Security Agency would conduct a lifestyle audit on him, his 10 MECs, and their families.
This comes after several allegations of corruption related to the emergency procurement of personal protective equipment (PPE).
The lifestyle audit will be to ascertain whether any of the provincial cabinet members or their families were living beyond their means.
“I instructed treasury as early as May, when we realised we are likely to go through turbulence around the issue of PPE, to do an ongoing audit, to the extent of an investigation into certain transactions that might be suspicious, so treasury is on that.”
The provincial government has awarded close to R1.2bn in PPE and maintenance contracts to more than 600 suppliers, he said.
The figure was initially announced by finance MEC Mlungisi Mvoko on Monday as a measure of ensuring Bhisho was transparent on how taxpayers’ money was spent during the pandemic.
Mabuyane said they wanted to promote clean and good governance.
“The purpose of us going public has never been done before. We are not perfect but we want to perfect the system.
“Even if we are in a disaster, we need to go via the normal supply chain and not take short cuts.
“The lifestyle audit is something that is done in advanced democracies as well, and we took too long to do it.
Mabuyane accepted four Mercedes Benz X Class bakkies, 3,000 face shields and 2,500 sanitisers and 20,000 face masks from Mercedes Benz SA.