Africa-Press – South-Africa. The Gauteng Health Department was facing medico-legal claims worth R20.8 billion as of the end of March this year, MEC Nomantu Nkomo-Ralehoko said on Thursday.
Nkomo-Ralehoko delivered her department’s budget vote in the Gauteng Legislature on Thursday.
The MEC said: “Medico-legal claims are still a major concern for the department. However, we have managed to bring down the rand value of medico-legal claims and the contingent liabilities to R20.8 billion as of the end of March.”
She said the work of verifying the cases would continue under a legal intervention strategy developed to address the negligence claims.
“The content of the strategy will include ensuring that we have a dedicated unit that will be working day and night to bring down medico-legal claims. We will further undertake reforms when contracting the CEOs of the hospitals to ensure that their employment contracts include the reduction of medico-legal claims as a key performance,” she said.
Strengthening governance
Nkomo-Ralehoko said the department was working hard to strengthen governance systems internally and ensure greater accountability on how limited state resources were used.
“We have subjected almost 1 600 senior managers and officials in supply chain management (SCM) and human resources (HR) to a vetting process. Our 106 senior services employees have now submitted their documents for processing by the State Security Agency (SSA),” she said.
Nkomo-Ralehoko said a further 1487 SCM and HR employees have also submitted completed forms for the SSA to process.
“We are working with the office of the premier to ensure that forensic investigations in the department are undertaken. We have taken a stance against maladministration and corruption and remain committed to work with Chapter 9 institutions and law enforcement agencies to ensure that the department is rid of bad apples,” she said.
Nkomo-Ralehoko added that the provincial health department had implemented the rapid work cycle programme for institutions to improve turnaround times on financial system-clearing.
She said:
She said the department’s budget allocation for the 2023/24 financial year was R60 billion. She said they had been allocated conditional grant funding amounting to R13.8 billion, which was used, among other things, to provide tertiary services, HIV/Aids programmes and training health professionals.
DA Health spokesperson Jack Bloom said the corruption machine in the department was very efficient indeed.
“Madam MEC, you are surrounded by snakes and will only progress once they are identified and dismissed. I am sure the lifestyle audits you mentioned this week will be a revelation,” he said.
The Health Department’s adherence to clean governance has been in the spotlight in the last two years following the murder of its acting chief director: financial accounting Babita Deokaran in August 2021.
Deokaran was killed after she found and exposed a host of fraudulent and irregular payments at Tembisa Hospital.
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