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The Northern Cape Health Department should freeze the salaries of the MEC and acting HOD until outstanding payments to sessional doctors have been made.

The DA is aware of sessional doctors who have been providing a service to the department for up to seven months, without being remunerated.

The DA reported the matter to the MEC and acting HOD, in April this year when I learnt that contract appointments of sessional doctors were not being honoured. Sessional doctors had not been paid by the department for February or March, on their old contracts, while sessional contracts for the new financial year were due to commence on 1 April 2022.

Last week, I again wrote to the MEC and acting HOD, appealing to the Health Department to resolve outstanding payments.

We are now nearing mid-September and the same doctors have yet to be paid.

It is unfair and unacceptable that doctors are simply expected to continue working as normal, when the Health Department couldn’t be bothered about meeting its end of the deal.

This is not the first time that the department has failed to honour payments to staff.

The DA will address the matter at the upcoming health portfolio committee meeting and insist that we receive a payment plan for all outstanding staff payments, with allocated dates.

The Health Department is not a law unto itself. It cannot use people to perform its duties, and then refuse to compensate them. If this is an acceptable state of affairs for the department we will request that the salary of the MEC and acting HOD should also be placed on ice, until the sessional doctors are paid.

Issued by Dr Isak Fritz, MPL - DA Spokesperson of Health