We have gathered outside the Ministry of Health today to demand that Health MEC, Fufe Makatong, steps down with immediate effect (see pictures here, here, here and here).

The MEC has been removed from the ANC’s lists because of criminal charges pertaining to theft.

The ANC might not be concerned about retaining a thief as its Provincial Treasurer, but we are very worried about letting a thief have unlimited access to the blank cheque of the Health Department.

There are still four weeks of this political administration left. A lot of looting can still take place.

Makatong must go before she embarks on a desperate attempt to fill her own personal coffers, knowing that after the 8th of May, she will no longer receive a state-sponsored salary.

Already Healthcare in the province has come to a total collapse under her political leadership.

Two weeks ago, in my capacity as an MPL, I conducted an oversight inspection of Robert Sobukwe Hospital, together with my colleague, John Steenhuisen, who is an MP. We were, however, blocked from gaining information on the state of Robert Sobukwe Hospital’s generators, due to an illegal  directive by MEC Makatong to stop oversight inspections.

Well, I do not know where she got the authority to override the constitution and challenge our constitutional duty to conduct oversight inspections.

I do, however, have my suspicions as to why she did not want us to be able to assess the facility’s generator capacity.

I have established that, during the stage 4 load shedding, some of the generators failed to kick in, leaving the labour ward and surgery without power.  Clearly, she wanted to keep us in the dark about the facility’s poor back up power supply.

Clearly, she is in the game of defending the failing ANC, at the expense of the province’s sick people.

Clearly, she I willing to let people die, for the cause of keeping the failing ANC in power.

Well, we have had enough of Fufe and we have had enough of the ANC.

She is one of many unlicensed drivers who has made the health care bus crash.

Under her leadership, health has gone from bad to worse:

At the time of our last oversight inspection, there was a young man with a stab wound to his back, who has been sleeping on a bench in the hospital for four days because of a lack of beds.
Around about the same time, I was called to an emergency situation at Harmony Home, whereby 15 overnight patients from Springbok didn’t have accommodation and were on the verge of sleeping on the floor before the DA intervened.
We recently had a shortage of medication in Marydale, whereby chronically ill patients were left without their supply of lifesaving treatment and oxygen.
A few weeks ago, a suicidal young man tried to kill himself at Dr Harry Surtie Hospital in Upington because he could not gain access to mental health care services that he so desperately needs.
Not long ago, a woman gave birth to her son in a taxi because no ambulances responded timeously to her   emergency call.
This department rather buys and hoards food parcels in bulk, to win ANC by-elections, instead of investing in health care.
The list goes on and on.

The Health Department is used as a slush fund for the politically connected, to enrich themselves and to keep the ANC in power.

It is no wonder that the financial viability of this department is increasingly uncertain.

At the end of last year, the country’s Auditor General, Kimi Makwetu, expressed concern about the poor state of the provincial health department, warning that it could collapse because it is running on a deficit.

At the end of the 2017/2018 financial year, the department experienced a budgetary shortfall of half a billion rand.

At the same time, at the start of the current financial year, the total legal claims of R1,8 billion against the department by far exceeded what was left of the budget of R1,755 billion that was left for service delivery.

MEC Makatong has done nothing to turn this situation around.

Instead, she has made it worse.

So where does this leave the people of the Northern Cape?

There is a very real possibility that healthcare can also come to a standstill, much like the country’s electricity supply, if we leave people like MEC Makatong in charge.

This is indeed a crisis when we consider that close to 84% of the Northern Cape population, or approximately 959 000 people in the Northern Cape alone, are dependent on government health care.

If this department folds, these people will be left to suffer and die.

They will be left with no medical assistance, with no emergency services, with no medication for their chronic conditions. In effect, they will be left with no hope for a healthier tomorrow.

Without a doubt, this department is in serious trouble.

This is a department plagued by over a decade of mismanagement.

This is a department, that despite all the guidelines available, still contravenes every procurement regulation in the book and fails to divert money to where it is most needed.

Its crunch time and the urgency and magnitude of the reforms and decisions that need to be taken to retain health care operations, cannot be understated.

In the short term, MEC Makatong must pack her bags and go - Fufe must fall!

This will not save the health department, but it might just enable it to keep its head above water until after the elections, when the people of this province have an opportunity to vote for a change in government.

In the long term, however, only change under a DA-led government will serve to turn around the destitute Health Department, to ensure the  accessibility of health services for all.

The Democratic Alliance recognises the responsibility of government to provide adequate healthcare services to all the citizens of our nation.

This is enshrined in Section 27 of the Constitution, which states, “Everyone has the right to have access to healthcare services…where the state must take reasonable legislative and other measures, within its available resources, to achieve the progressive realisation of each of these rights.”

In order to rectify the current challenges facing the citizens of South Africa, with regard to access to quality primary medical healthcare and availability of medication, a DA government will see to it that all funds allocated to the health Department, go towards providing quality health care to the people of the Northern Cape.

We will establish an independent task team to investigate corruption within this department and this task team will be mandated follow through with cases all the way to prosecution and conviction.

We will see to it that all departmental contracts are reviewed to ensure affordability coupled with value for money.

We will ensure that a skills audit will be conducted at the provincial head office, with the aim of streamlining the admin block, so as to free up funds for the appointment of more nurses, doctors and other health professionals  to work in our clinics and hospitals instead.

We will speedily develop and implement a recruitment and retention strategy for health professionals, including the streamlining of the finalization of submissions, which often get so delayed that by the time someone is appointed, they have already commenced with another job in another province.

We will extend the hours of primary healthcare clinics in order to provide people with healthcare when it is convenient for them to access it – including in the evenings after work, and during the weekends.

We will provide mobile clinics for existing settlements which are not yet formalised and exist beyond a 5km radius of existing public health facilities. Regular visits from mobile clinics can ensure that those communities who have not previously had access to healthcare can benefit from a wide range of life-saving primary healthcare without having to budget for transport money.

We will also lobby national government to give the Northern Cape more money for health by revisiting the equitable share allocation to be able to get our clinics and hospitals working optimally.

We will further implement maintenance and replacement plans will be implemented for the ambulance, patient transport and mortuary fleets.

These are just some of the things we will do to take health out of the ICU.

But it all starts with saying goodbye to Fufe today and saying goodbye to the ANC on 8th May. Otherwise, we can be certain of further regression and the total collapse of the Northern Cape government health sector.

I therefore encourage everyone to think carefully about who you will vote for in four weeks’ time.

A vote for the DA is a vote for quality and accessible health care.