Did red tape keep Beale in theatre?
Health council takes years on complaints by bereaved families
● The Health Professions Council of SA (HPCSA) has come under fire after revealing it was running multiple investigations into prominent Johannesburg paediatric surgeon Peter Beale at the time two children died after going under his knife.
The investigations, according to the HPCSA, were into his competence, among other things.
The South African Medical Association (Sama) has slammed the council, describing it as “inefficient and ineffective”.
This comes as the Hawks and Special Investigating
Unit are investigating HPCSA staff for allegedly fraudulently licensing medical practitioners and taking bribes.
The health ministry told the Sunday Times it had received an increase in complaints against the council, with spokesperson Lwazi Manzi saying 15 complaints were reported this financial year. She did not say what the complaints had increased from.
The HPCSA has been embattled for years. In 2015, after a series of anonymous complaints about alleged maladministration, then health minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi ordered an investigation into the regulator, which found “multi-system organisational dysfunction” and “evidence of administrative irregularities, mismanagement and poor governance”.
Beale, along with anaesthetist Abdulhay Munshi, had their Netcare facilities’ practising and admission privileges suspended two weeks ago after the death of 10-year-old Zayyaan Sayed.
Zayyaan died in Netcare’s Park Lane Clinic hours after Beale performed a laparoscopic procedure to stop reflux. His death, according to Netcare’s group medical director, Dr Anchen Laubscher, came weeks after 12year-old Monique Moorcroft died in September after Beale operated on her at the same hospital.
Beale was under a Netcare peer review when Zayyaan died.
Sama is a doctors’ advocacy group. Its head, Dr Angelique Coetzee, said its members described the HPCSA as “inefficient and ineffective in carrying out its mandate”.
“Sadly, these same inefficiencies are experienced by members of the public,” she said.
“It is unfortunate that four years after the task team’s report, most of the same problems, including poor communication, unfair processes in carrying out professional conduct inquiries and prolonged delays in processing applications, still persist.”
Dr Chris Archer, head of the South African Private Practitioners Forum, said the HPCSA’s functioning was deplorable.
“It used to be that it was a council of doctors, by doctors, for doctors looking after patients’ interests. Now it is essentially a council appointed by the health minister, which we have a problem with.”
Health ministry spokesperson Manzi said the HPCSA ran effectively and fulfilled its responsibilities, but complaints about its actions and inaction were increasing.
“The ministry is concerned about the complaints and case backlogs. The minister has worked with the HPCSA to address these complaints.”
She said the task team report had provided information on “institutional bottlenecks inside the HPCSA that could have contributed to malfunctioning”.
Decisions had been taken to expedite the clearing of backlogs within one year “through improvements in complaints handling and the ombudsman function”.
HPCSA spokesperson Priscilla Sekhonyana conceded that there are delays, saying cases take, on average, two years to finalise.
“Committee members are not full-time employees and this impacts on such committees’ operations. On average [the eventual hearing] before a professional conduct committee takes about two days.”
She, however, admitted that a complaint lodged against Beale six years ago was still not concluded, with the matter removed in October 2019 “due to the unavailability of an expert witness”.
She said that in October 2018 Beale was fined R80,000 for, among other things, gross negligence. The council had received five complaints against Beale, relating to “competence, fees and child’s medical records which a parent was requesting”. Three of the complaints were at the inquiry stage, with the first set to be heard in December.
“A matter lodged in 2018 is … in mediation. A matter lodged on 23 October 2019 is currently under investigation,” she said.
Asked if the HPCSA should have suspended Beale given the complaints, Sekhonyana said it had to act within the law.
Zayyaan’s father, Mohammadh Sayed, described the HPCSA as “toothless”.
“Just look at how many other parents have lost children after this doctor operated on them. There are ongoing hearings against him yet he is still practising. Why?”
Sean Teubes, whose three-year-old son Ethan died in 2012 after Beale operated on him, said it had taken five years to receive an outcome after he first laid a complaint with the HPCSA against his son’s surgeon.