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A reply  to a DA parliamentary question reveals an R800 million hospital infrastructure underspend due to delayed awarding of tenders, poor contractor performance and court challenges.

The provinces below are seriously underspending on their Hospital Revitalisation Grants:

• Eastern Cape: R191 million
• Kwa-Zulu Natal: R228 million
• Free State: R134 million
• Northern Cape: R228 million
• Limpopo: R89 million

Behind the numbers lies a crumbling infrastructure with serious and, in some cases, life-threatening consequences for patients.

The Eastern Cape, for example, has a R22 billion infrastructure and maintenance backlog. On a recent oversight visit to the Nessie Knight Hospital in the Eastern Cape we found the following:

• The hospital’s infrastructure was dilapidated. It was recommended that the nurses’ home, ARV TB ward and the engine room be condemned and demolished, as they posed an “occupational health and safety risk to staff and the patients”.
• TB wards were poorly ventilated, which is unacceptable in a country where our TB prevalence rate is ranked 143rd worst out of 144 countries.
• The sanitation system needed upgrading and the sewerage system was dysfunctional.

Quality health care is a constitutional right that must be realised as a matter of urgency. Public hospitals are relied upon by the most vulnerable of our society and cannot be compromised by government inefficiencies and undue delays. If funding is made available it must be utilised efficiently and effectively.

I will submit follow-up questions to Minister Motsoaledi to ascertain what further steps he plans to take to ensure that underspending on hospital infrastructure in these provinces comes to an end.