Durban - Former University of KwaZulu-Natal vice-chancellor Professor Malegapuru Makgoba has been appointed the first health ombudsman - his role will be to address the challenges in both private and public healthcare.
Addressing Parliament, Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi said Makgoba would deal with issues including patient safety, claims management, patient justice and the impact of litigation on access to South African health care.
Makgoba assumes his duties at the beginning of next month.
Speaking to The Mercury on Wednesday, Makgoba said his job concerned the public and it entailed supporting and promoting the quality of health service they received.
His office would investigate complaints received from the public, and make findings and recommendations.
Although he reported directly to the minister, his investigations would be conducted independently.
“My job includes, for example, finding out that there are no particular drugs or particular equipment available, or structures of governance which can lead to the deterioration in health services.”
“The ombudsman may also find that the medical or nursing profession is no longer in adherence to the codes of standard and I would have to raise those issues and try to correct them,” he said.
“There is a reactive element in terms of complaints and there is also a proactive side, in trying to improve the quality of the institutions and the (medical) profession.”
Makgoba said the minister was inundated with complaints.
“We will be dealing with those and trying to address them through investigations and through being fair and guiding the patient or the complainant to the right ways in which it can be resolved.”
Having started his university education as a medical student, Makgoba said he was always interested in cases where systems did not work as they should and issues of quality.
“In 1973 I was a third-year medical student and I attended my first post-mortem in pathology.”
“There was a patient who had died and on whom we were doing a post-mortem. It became obvious that there was medical negligence.”
“At the end of that post-mortem I went to the pathology professor and asked him if there was no way in which our profession could do better than this.”
“He told me that is why we had pathology, because it helped improve the medical profession in training people like myself, but also helped doctors to learn from such mistakes in order that they can improve the quality of their services.”
“My interest in serving and improving service started from that idea in 1973.”
The Mercury