INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPERS

A woman at Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital shows her dissatisfaction while Gauteng Health MEC Ntombi Mekgwe addresses the press at the hospital. Picture: Matthews Baloyi

The Gauteng government has pledged to settle R1.6bn in outstanding bills owed by the provincial Health Department to suppliers by the end of next month.

The Star understands that the premier’s office will secure a total of R1bn pooled from projected underspending in various provincial departments, capital expenditure savings and conditional grants.

This action comes in the wake of reports that babies have died – two of which were avoidable stillbirths – while others have been left brain damaged at Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital’s labour ward because of a staffing crisis linked to, among others, the non-payment of nursing agencies.

Five SA National Defence Force theatre nurses were deployed to the hospital’s maternity ward last month.

While Health MEC Ntombi Mekgwe admitted that the hospital was facing staff shortages, she downplayed it on Thursday, saying the maternity ward was short of only one theatre nurse per shift.

But a memorandum by a senior specialist sent to the hospital’s medical advisory committee in December paints a different picture.

It revealed that the ward was supposed to be staffed by seven nurses in admissions, 13 in the labour ward, four in high care and six in theatre.

However, the register revealed that on one weekend in early December there were between zero and two nurses in admission (seven required), between two and three in the labour ward (13), two in high care (four) and between one and three in the theatre (six).

“We are trying to provide an obstetric service in shocking and dangerous conditions to a community that has not been informed about the inadequacies of our overloaded labour ward, admissions and theatre, and our dangerously inadequate nursing staff complement,” the doctor wrote.

Bara CEO Johanna More said her labour ward staff were being overburdened by women who self-refer themselves to the hospital and who also posed a high risk because many of them had never received antenatal care.

Mekgwe said the department had implemented changes to its recruitment strategy which entailed freezing all vacant non-critical posts and hiring only critical health professionals.

“What we’ve said is that critical staff members must be employed. But those unnecessary posts must not be filled… The reason is that our personnel budget is going up every day (because of) those staff that are not critical.”

Over the past two days the department was expected to have paid a total of R736m to 254 suppliers, including R150m to the National Health Laboratory Service, which has closed down four labs in Gauteng as a result of delayed payment by the health Department.

The department owes a total of R2.1bn to its suppliers, but Mekgwe said the debt was compounded by the fact that the department itself was owed around R1.4bn by other provinces, medical aids, private patients and state departments.

She also said the department was receiving duplicate invoices from suppliers and “ghost doctors”.

All outstanding invoices dated between 2002 and March 31 last year would be settled by the end of March. All outstanding bills falling after this period would be settled by June 30, Mekgwe added.

Breakdown of costs owed:

* Over the past two days a total of R736m was paid towards the Gauteng Department of Health’s outstanding supplier bills

* Medical suppliers: R386m

* SA National Blood Service: R50m

* National Health Laboratory Service: R150m

* Nursing agencies: R12.6m

* Gas, oil and fuel: R57.4m

* Food: R58m

* Security: R22m

- The Star

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