Durban - Opposition MPLs have been warned to not again set foot in public health facilities to conduct unannounced oversight visits, as Health MEC Sibongiseni Dhlomo said they were disturbing workers, preventing them from carrying out their duties.
Announcing the ban on MPLs’ private inspections without an arrangement with authorities, including his office, Dhlomo said those who insisted on doing so would be kicked out of health institutions.
He was addressing a full sitting of the legislature in Pietermaritzburg on Thursday where the performance of his department was debated.
“When you wake up, feel bored and decide to go to hospitals and clinics, you will never be allowed in. I can guarantee you,” said Dhlomo.
Opposition MPLs pay unannounced visits to various government facilities such as hospitals, clinics and schools to formulate issues to raise with the provincial government or the provincial legislature.
The ban on this did not go down well with the EFF and DA.
However, Dhlomo stuck to his guns.
“We are going to stop it (unannounced visits) because our employees do not have a culture of abandoning their patients to attend to you,” he said.
“When you arrive at the hospital, what do you want them (staff) to do? You want them to abandon patients and deal with you when there is no proper arrangement?”
A senior department official, who asked not to be named, told The Mercury that if MPLs visited government institutions for oversight reasons it would mean that a hospital manager, medical manager, hospital board chairman and district manager should be there to answer questions.
“Everything just comes to a stop,” said the official.
EFF MPL Thembi Msane said she would defy the ban and continue to conduct unannounced visits.
“We are not employed by the MEC. We are here to assist the voters. Unfortunately, MEC, I am not going to ask for permission from you or anybody,” she said.
Msane’s reaction angered Dhlomo, who said that if she did so she would be kicked out of any public health institution.
DA MPL Imran Keeka, who Dhlomo accused of having used an oversight visit to steal a sensitive document, said he had in the past been barred from entering Copesville Clinic in Pietermaritzburg.
“In my view this is what we call an ‘ultra vires’ decision because he cannot make a decision like that,” he said.
Keeka said he had asked the legislature’s Speaker, Lydia Johnson, to get legal opinion on this.
“Several months have passed and we have not received response from the Speaker.
“We now have to report this matter to the public protector because this is clearly abuse of power.”
Keeka said the document, which Dhlomo said he had obtained illegally, contained sensitive information about fraud related to cancer machines at Addington Hospital in Durban. He said the allegations about the machines were first raised by the MEC.
National Freedom Party MPL Erikson Zungu said the party was also opposed to the ban “as long as MPLs do not abuse those oversight visits”.
He said whenever he was at home in Madadeni, in Newcastle, he conducted oversight visits.
Dhlomo praised him for always asking for permission before undertaking the visits.
The Mercury