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The Democratic Alliance in Mpumalanga has marched in a bid to force health MEC, Gillion Mashego, to resign for “bringing basic healthcare into its knees”.
But the spokesperson for the Mpumalanga premier David Mabuza, Zibonele Mncwango, said Mabuza would not fire Mashego because of the march.
“The premier cannot be pushed. He checks the strengths and weaknesses of the deployees and doesn’t act under pressure from opposition,” Mncwango said.
The party marched to the department of health today and handed over its memorandum, which claims that Mashego has led a department that has:
• Failed to implement a turn-around strategy suggested by the South African Human Rights Commission in 2014;
• Underspent the budget by R85.3 million because of staff shortages and delayed appointments;
• Destroyed expired medication that included antiretroviral drugs, tuberculosis medicines and vaccines valued at R5 million over the past two years due to improper storage and staff shortages;
• Increased the maternal mortality rate;
• Abolished 12 326 posts, 3 120 of which were funded;
• Faced R60 million in lawsuits for medical negligence because doctors were overworked; and
• Lost R500 million in conditional grants that were meant to build hospitals and clinics, which were eventually never built.
“We cannot allow Mashego to continue endangering the lives of Mpumalanga citizens and brutalising the department in the manner he has,” said DA legislature member, Jane Sithole.
Sithole said no single hospital was complying with vital and extreme measure of the national core standards.
“This means that should the National Health Insurance project be ever implemented in South Africa, it is unlikely to come to Mpumalanga,” she said.
The commission did site visits on three hospitals – Rob Ferreira in Mbombela, Samuel Bernice (Delmas) and Matibidi – and found that problems were staff shortages and centralisation of procurement and recruitment that contributed to inefficient operations.
The human rights commission also found that the Auditor-General’s negative findings on the department’s performance were as a result of poor financial management and human resources as well as lack of infrastructure.
“Since the MEC came in there has been stability in the department, and he’s building health facilities. Things will not change overnight and the MEC cannot be blamed for staff attitudes such as hospital chief executives,” Mncwango said.
Mabuza reshuffled his cabinet last month and Mashego was retained in his position.
