We are not out to kill patients, says Gauteng’s new health MEC speaking on his turnaround strategy
|||Two weeks into his new job as Gauteng MEC for Health, Hope Papo spoke of what he intends to do with his crisis-ridden department.
Q: What tasks and challenges lie ahead for you?
A: The department has recently developed a turnaround strategy for the next two years. The challenges are: finance and financial management; human resources management development; effective and efficient hospital management; medico-legal services and litigation (minimise mistakes); management of health information and systems; communication and social mobilisation; and health infrastructure management (the rehabilitation of facilities).
If Chris Hani Baragwanath is able to deliver 25 000 children in a year – people need to know this – but they must also know that having 10 or 20 die is not acceptable. Many employees are not there to kill patients – they are there to save them – but in every institution you find rogues.
Q: How bad are facilities and infrastructure in Gauteng hospitals, particularly with regard to ICU, lifts and security?
A: All those things are to be addressed in our turnaround to ensure that services are properly procured, we employ staff and train doctors. My own view is that in every facility there are good areas and there are areas that need improvement. If you check in our hospitals we have actually increased the number of nurses in Gauteng compared to five years ago.
Q: What is happening to payment of suppliers?
A: From over R3 billion of accruals there are still some queries around payments of about R200m which our hospital managers and CEOs are clarifying. We have done a lot (to fix this).
We are not in a situation where we are running out of medication (at hospitals).
There were six machines at Charlotte Maxeke (Academic Hospital) for oncology (cancer treatment) that were not working because of payment (problems) – four were repaired and two are receiving attention.
Q: Do you accept that security breaches in hospitals are unacceptable?
A: Lax security is not acceptable – I expect when I go to any facility in Gauteng that they must search my entire car not just the boot. They must conduct body searches so that they protect the environment of patients and health workers.
The assessment of why security breaches happened must have consequences.
Q: What initiatives are there to attract the best qualified health professionals to Gauteng hospitals?
A: Gauteng has got some of the best health workers in the country. The Occupations Specific Dispensation has helped us keep some of the best professionals in the service. We value our professional staff.
Q: What time frames have you given yourself to ensure the implementation of the turnaround strategy?
A: There are things that are already happening this year like cost containment measures. Already over 100 cars have been withdrawn from people who were using them while they were not supposed to have them.
We are robustly collecting money owed to us which is about R1.9bn…
We are confident that in the development of our 2013-2014 budget we will be able to link measures in the turnaround strategy to specific activities and costs. Every three months we will check if we have met our targets.
I am not a magician. Obviously I will be working with the employees of this department. I cannot do it on my own.
Saturday Star