Gauteng’s provincial health minister, Brian Hlongwa, has splashed out on renovating his boardroom with R1 million from the public purse according to this article in last week’s Financial Mail.
This outrageous extravagance comes at a time when Gauteng’s hospitals are under more strain than ever, with vastly inadequate and ill-maintained infrastructure (such as broken lifts), as well as chronic personnel and resource shortages.
Not that Hlongwa seems to care. As the FM says:
At Chris Hani Baragwanath hospital … it’s not unusual for patients (including the critically ill and pregnant women), doctors and nurses to climb flights of stairs because of broken lifts.
This doesn’t spur Hlongwa into action. “It’s a public works issue,” he tells the FM casually …
Indeed, Hlongwa seems more intent on creating a cushy environment at the provincial health head office, with an alleged R26 million being spent on alterations. And, in less than five years, personnel at the head office has surged to more than double in less than five years.
With the DA accusing Hlongwa of spending too much money on consultants, Hlongwa responds with: “It’s easy for the DA to criticise. We’re using the consultants from the private sector. That’s where the skills reside but they don’t come cheap.”
Of course if there hadn’t been a purge of skills and experience from government they wouldn’t be faced with the need of hiring so many consultants (many of which are actually former employees). And it would help if there were significant improvements to salaries and working conditions — with posts to be filled by the most-skilled applicant and not one chosen purely on a racial bean-counting basis — to boost expertise in the public service.
Hlongwa and his ilk epitomise the callous indifference the ruling elite have for society’s most vulnerable. Those dependent on state healthcare have a raw deal thanks to a fatcat cabal far too preoccupied with self-enrichment to give a damn about service delivery.
Dismantling apartheid’s vicious and continuing legacy is simply not the urgent priority it should be.
Swanky renovations, a legion of consultants and gravy train buffets would be somewhat more tolerable if healthcare services (or any constitutionally-mandated government obligation for that matter) were of the highest standard. But they’re not: they’re abysmal.
And, sadly, until the people are put first, it will stay that way.
Read the FM article here.
This column first appeared on Alex’s politics blog, Afrodissident.
Obviously this was approved in Manto’s day if it has already been spent. Poor Barbara Hogan – what an uphill job she has!
A million Rand paint-job and redecoration keeps this fatcat happy as he toils away at his day job. After all, if ever he fell sick, he’d not go anywhere near a state hospital, would he?
Looking after Number One — that’s the way Africa does things.
Thank you for highlighting this.
However, lifts are the least of our needs at Bara. No linen, paper towels, infusion sets, writing paper….we lack the most basic of things. Staff have pooled together to buy toilet paper, coffee etc.
The scariest thing is that the behaviour and callousness of the MEC translates into further demoralising of the staff. An attitude has fostered where doctors/ nurses could not care less of who is dying, because of the complete lack of support from those above. We can only fight as much…..
I firmly believe it is not possible to be this incompetent.
Either the story is a sensationalist attempt to boost readership, or there is an intentional lack of provisioning of healthcare.
Both alternatives leave a chill in my spine.
In 2006 Hlongwa spent R700,000 on refurbishing his office.
Did it take him two years to destroy the previous fix-up job?
If the ANC takes Gauteng Province again in the next election then the voters of Gauteng do not deserve hospitals.
Let them eat stethoscopes…
I demand that this wall be painted lilac. And my new desk must be solid stinkwood and as big as a full-sized ping-pong table.
We didn’t struggle to be poor.
I work at Bara, and witness, on a daily basis, the shortage that afflicts just about every single department. The majority of staff soldier manfully on, providing the best care that is possible under the strained conditions.
And yet we have mampara Hlongwa upgrading his office, and throwing elaborate parties, where he proclaims to the adoring fans (i.e. the limp HPCSA) that the health department in Gauteng is ‘going great’.
It makes me ill. So very, very ill. I watched a woman wait so long for a Caesarian section, because the waiting list was inordinately large, that her child was delivered dead. To add insult to injury, her exhausted womb wouldn’t contract, and a hysterectomy was performed to control the torrential bleeding. The heroic doctors performed over 30 Caesars that night, but the case load prevented them from getting to her on time. Meanwhile, we ran out of linen in the admission ward, and patients had to lie in the blood and secretions of others. As we don’t have nearly enough beds to accommodate everyone, women in the latent phase of labour have to sit on a hard, wooden bench while we wait to reassess them. Only 6 beds (!) are available in the high care area, which means that many women with dangerously high blood pressures and pre-eclampsia, are given insufficient care for their potentially fatal conditions, as they can not find space in that precious ward.
I could go on and on, about the broken CT scanner (which means Bara has 1, yes 1, scanner for all 2500 patients), the 2 month waiting list for a bone scan, the fact that there are only 4 ventilators in the resuscitation room of the surgical pit, the fact that nursing agencies are paid too late which means that swathes of nurses simply don’t come to work, etc etc. Bara needs money desperately to save lives, but all Hlongwa can do is upgrade his office. He is a disgrace, as is the entire health department of Gauteng. Shame on you, sirs and madams. Shame on you.