Medical negligence costs Gauteng

Although more than R1.5 billion in medico-legal claims were being wrangled over last year, the Gauteng department of health (GDH) said it is making progress in reducing the burden.

Medical negligence claims often led to limited funds being diverted to settle claims, instead of contributing to maintaining and expanding services.

The Democratic Alliance (DA) claimed the department had received 157 new summonses for medical negligence in the last year, worth R1.6 billion.

The information, the party said, was disclosed in a presentation by the GDH at a meeting of the Gauteng Legislature’s health committee.

DA Gauteng shadow MEC for health Jack Bloom said according to the department, medical-legal litigation continued to increase and “extraordinary measures must be taken to prevent a possible collapse of the healthcare system”.

“The department also identifies the legal attachment of funds as ‘a huge challenge to the financial sustainability of the department’ as they ‘diminish the ability of the department to render health services to patients as it is obliged to do in terms of section 27 of the constitution’.

“The department has been refused extra funding to pay for adverse judgments, which is why its own funds are attached by creditors,” Bloom said.

Kwara Kekana, spokesperson for the Gauteng health MEC, said as part of a long-term intervention, the GDH late in 2019 had started implementing the mediation policy and the mediation strategy.

“The adoption of the mediation strategy has interventions to deal with medico-legal cases, and has saved government millions of rands, and the process has proven to be quicker and less acrimonious, with cases being settled faster.”

Kekana said the national department of health had appointed a service provider to assist the department through the verification of its contingent liability amount.

“Contingent liability refers to the potential risk exposure that the department would possibly face if they were ordered to pay the amounts claimed through summonses received. However, in the majority of cases the amounts awarded by the courts are far less than the amount claimed by the plaintiffs.

“The process of auditing ... is underway to verify the raw data for accuracy. Therefore, figures provided are likely to change as these form part of the contingent liability and not cases settled,” Kekana said.

Gauteng health chief financial officer Lerato Madyo last month acknowledged that medico-legal cases were of serious concern, but the department has made progress in reducing the balance of medico-legal claims.

“Medico-legal cases started with payments of about R583 million by end of 2020-21 financial year. Now, in 2021-22 we are talking of plus-minus at least R292 million.”

Madyo said this related only to cases which the courts have instructed the department to pay based on medical negligence of the department’s own clinicians.