RK Khan CEO, Subban redeployed

Staff, supporters point to maggots episode

MEDICS, staff and others aligned to RK Khan Hospital believe Dr Prakash Subban is the casualty after maggots occurred in the mouth of a patient at the health-care facility.

Subban, who was the Chatsworth-based hospital’s chief executive and accounting officer, has been removed from the post and redeployed, this week, by Health MEC Nomagugu Simelane-zulu.

Subban’s supporters claimed he was pivotal in ensuring health care became a reality at the hospital, in spite of not receiving adequate support and resources from the Health Department.

In spite of the challenges, the hospital achieved various service excellence awards during his more than 20 years as head of the hospital.

Yet, Subban had to shoulder the blame when patient Sadek Ebrahim was found with maggots wriggling under his upper lip, his backers claimed.

Ebrahim died of natural causes at the hospital, earlier this month.

Since Ebrahim’s death, the SA Nursing Council, the Department of Health’s Special Investigations Unit and the SA Human Rights Commission have all conducted investigations.

Nqobile Mkhwanazi, who was the chief executive at Queen Nandi Hospital in Empangeni, will replace Subban, who has been moved to St Aidan’s Hospital in central Durban.

He is presently on sick leave. Simelane-zulu met with Subban, members of the hospital’s executive, management and board before she announced her decision.

She said the decision was not made in isolation but related to the hospital’s management, that ignored implementations recommended by her department to remedy some of the challenges at RK Khan in the past.

“We took a decision that Dr Subban be moved so that we can bring in a new CEO with fresh eyes, who will be able to actually turn around the institution,” Simelane-zulu said.

But a source at the hospital, who asked not to be named, asked why Subban was not questioned about the implementations that were ignored when he underwent a performance evaluation with a senior Department of Health official in May.

“Removing Dr Subban from the hospital is just a ruse. It has been done deliberately to take the attention away from the Department of Health.”

The source said the only intervention that was required in recent times was the vervet monkey problem at the hospital.

“Sonic deterrents were installed, which significantly reduced the monkey problem, but the hospital had to pay R270 000 for the relief from its own annual budget.”

According to the informant, constant water leaks, faulty air conditioning systems in wards and theatres and the shortage of staff and resources are the challenges that Subban and his team had to contend with on a daily basis.

And their call for assistance was largely ignored.

“Often nurses and the medical staff would be overwhelmed by the high volume of patients that required treatment at the hospital, but Dr Subban was able to motivate them to keep going for the sake of the patients.”

The source said Subban first joined the hospital as an intern in 1981 and returned a few years later.

When Subban made a brief appearance at the hospital on Thursday, a long line of staff queued for the opportunity to commiserate.

Former long standing hospital board member Marlan Padayachee, who was present, said he was there on a fact-finding mission after the recent maggots debacle.

“The decision to redeploy Dr Subban smacks of unfairness and injustice. “He was made a political scapegoat. “The turnaround strategy will not work if the hospital continues to battle low staff morale, crumbling infrastructure and forever shrinking budgets,” he said.

Padayachee said under Subban’s watch the hospital received numerous accolades.

They include the Premier’s Service Excellence Award, a gold award from the Centre for Public Service Innovation in December for the audiology work done at the hospital.

The African Ministers of Public Service Gold Award the hospital received in 2013 for its Centralised Chronic Medicine Dispensing and Distribution programme was its highest honour, according to Padayachee.

“That programme services 28 000 patients with chronic medication every month and it has since been rolled out by the Department of Health throughout the country and in some southern African countries,” he said.