Nelspruit - Free State premier Ace Magashule should immediately fire the province's health MEC Benny Malakoane, the Democratic Alliance said on Friday.
“It is alleged that MEC Malakoane interfered with ICU admission procedures at the Dihlabeng Hospital in Bethlehem,” DA spokesman in the Free State Roy Jankielsohn said in a statement.
“He abused his power and privilege to force the hospital to make an ICU bed immediately available in order to admit an ANC-connected individual.”
Jankielsohn was referring to an article published in the Mail & Guardian which stated that other patients waiting to be admitted to the ICU were dropped in order to make space for the ANC man.
An unnamed doctor quoted in the article claimed that hospital staff were told to make space for the ailing man because Malakoane had promised the man's family that he would admitted to ICU.
The ANC man was admitted to the unit, despite the fact that he did not qualify as he was in the last stages of a chronic condition and unlikely to recover.
Jankielsohn said this was unacceptable, especially because the province's health facilities were struggling to feed, operate, medicate or properly attend to its patients.
“We reported the provincial department of health and MEC Malakoane to the SA Human Rights Commission last week, requesting it to investigate human rights violations perpetuated against the people of the Free State,” Jankielsohn said.
The provincial health department could not immediately be reached for comment.
Sapa