Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi is "working hard" on correcting the "shortcomings" at provincial health departments which have led to an estimated R7,5-billion in debt, his department said on Thursday.

Spokesperson Fidel Hadebe said that the minister agreed with the findings of Integrated Support Team (IST) reports, commissioned by former Health Minister Barbara Hogan in 2009, which identified a range of failures at provincial health departments.

"We agree with what the report points to in terms of shortcomings in the system, especially in issues of financial management," Hadebe said.

"The minister is working hard on correcting the shortcomings.

"In all of the council meetings, when [Motsoaledi] works with MECs, the issue of financial management is a standing item on the agenda so that we can identify areas where there is misspending."

According to the nongovernmental organisation, the Rural Health Advocacy Project, failures in political leadership, inappropriate financial management and a failure to plan properly for human resources at provincial departments of health contributed to the debt.

"The IST reports contain an honest, sobering assessment of the inadequate financial capacity of provincial departments of health that have led to the development of over R,.5-billion in provincial debt as of April 2009," RHAP said.

"The findings in these reports reveal fundamental failures in political and bureaucratic leadership, inappropriate financial management systems, inadequate monitoring and evaluation systems, and a failure to plan appropriately for human resources, amongst others."

The IST reports on each province were commissioned by Hogan in response to budgetary shortfalls that overwhelmed provincial departments of health in the 2008/2009 financial year.

With its budgets at crisis level, the Free State department of health issued a moratorium on the initiation of new patients onto antiretroviral treatment in November 2008.

The moratorium was lifted in February 2009 after civil society pressure.

Hadebe said that one of things the minister was pushing for was more spending on service delivery and less on bureaucracy.

"The problem is being dealt with nationally and holistically," he said.

"Some provinces will experience an acute kind of situation like in Free State where there were problems with anti-retrovirals (ARVs).

"We can not accept a situation where a programme as important as the ARV programme is not being funded.

"We have to fix the aircraft while flying it."