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The Gauteng Health Department has given a weak response to the heartfelt plea by Dr Tim De Maayer who wrote an open letter this week about the crisis at the Rahima Moosa Mother and Child Hospital (RMMCH).

Dr De Maayer describes how “things are falling apart”, and children are dying because of basic services not being available.

I challenged Gauteng Health MEC Nomathemba Mokgethi in the health budget debate yesterday in the Gauteng Legislature to admit that there is a full-scale crisis, rather than “pressures” as she has said in a recent interview.

But her response was only more of the same that we have heard before, that the department is responding and issues are being addressed.

A case in point is the 16-year-old CT Scanner that has been broken for more than three months at the RMMCH.

According to the department, the breakdown was due to normal wear and tear, and a part was ordered from the Netherlands. After it was installed it was discovered that yet another part was faulty which was ordered from Phillips SA, but it turned out that there was yet another fault that caused the newly installed part to blow out.

Technicians are now looking to salvage parts from a condemned CT Scanner at the Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Hospital which may or may not ensure that the RMMCH Scanner returns to working order.

When I asked MEC Mokgethi yesterday as to when the CT Scanner would be fixed she could not give me a firm date.

Meanwhile, Dr De Maayer describes how a child needed an urgent brain scan but had to wait 48 hours before it could be done at the Nelson Mandela Childrens Hospital.

The key issue is why there wasn’t a continuous maintenance contract for the scanner and a plan to replace it when it predictably broke down after being used for a normal lifespan.

This is a problem at other public hospitals in Gauteng where vital machinery breaks down all the time and patients’ lives are put at risk.

The first step in addressing a crisis is to admit that there is a crisis. Dr De Maayer is correct to say that “things are falling apart”.

I noted in my budget speech yesterday that there are still too many incompetent and corrupt officials in key positions. This is why a very large budget of R59.4 billion is spent so inefficiently and ineffectively.

It’s like pouring water into a leaking bucket.

This is why we saw the feeding frenzy over the PPE money, and other scandals like the R500 million spent on the Anglo Ashanti ghost hospital in the far west rand.

It’s also why Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Hospital has not been speedily repaired, causing terrible suffering to thousands of patients.

We need determined political will from the very top to take the hard decisions to fix the deep rot in the Gauteng Health Department, otherwise the life-destroying scandals will continue to happen.

Issued by DA Gauteng Shadow ME for Health Jack Bloom