Johannesburg - It has become costly to protect patients at Gauteng’s public hospitals.
DA health spokesman Jack Bloom this week said security systems at some hospitals were fraught with inconsistencies and corruption.
“We are being ripped off time and time again by security companies,” Bloom said in the wake of a recent attack on a health worker at Helen Joseph Hospital.
Bongiwe Mguni, 44, a nurse at the hospital was raped and brutally attacked while walking along the hospital’s 4th floor corridors last Friday.
Mguni has since come out to highlight the lack of efficient security at hospitals.
Speaking on a series of incidents including the stabbing of a nurse and the rape of a health worker at Baragwaneth Academic Hospital in the past, Bloom said he believed that while the government was trying its best to tighten security, contracts and tenders were awarded to companies under suspicious circumstances.
“Corruption is rife in the security industry. These companies are paid far more than they should be getting. Money goes out and yet we don’t see the results,” he said.
Bloom said if the figures were broken down there was something sinister about the millions companies were getting to secure hospitals.
A study into an appropriate security model for state hospitals has been initiated after the National Health Council took a decision to review safety measures at hospitals.
Saturday Star