A number of provinces are sued by patients for negligence. File Picture: Leon Lestrade: African News Agency (ANA)
The Auditor-General has lifted the lid on provinces that have been slapped with multi-billion rand lawsuits for negligence in public hospitals in the last few years.
In the presentation that was made in Parliament, it showed the Eastern Cape, Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal have faced more lawsuits than any other province.
Andries Sekgetho, from the Office of the Auditor-General said the money that is used to pay claims could be used for service delivery.
The Department of Health was sued for R125 billion.
In the select committee on appropriations on Wednesday, the acting business leader in the office of the auditor-general Thabelo Musisinyani said negligence claims have been increasing exponentially in the last few years.
“This number is not decreasing when you look at the amounts paid out over the years. The sector is doing something about this, but they are facing challenges. We are concerned that there are provinces with a number of claims,” said Musisinyani.
In the presentation by the office of the Auditor-General it showed the Eastern Cape was one of the provinces with most of the claims.
Maryke Schneigans, from the Auditor-General’s office, said the Eastern Cape bore most of the lawsuits, resulting in the province struggling to fund its projects.
The provincial health department in the Eastern Cape was facing lawsuits of R30.7 billion.
Schneigans said in KwaZulu-Natal the medical claims were R31.7bn. It was followed by Gauteng with negligence claims of R23bn.
In Limpopo, the medical claims were R14.2bn and in the North West they were standing at R5.9bn.
She said in Mpumalanga the medical claims were R9.6bn.
Schneigans said in the Free State the medical claims were R5.9bn, while in the Western Cape they were at R3.3bn and Northern Cape the claims stood at R1.5bn.
However, it emerged that when it came to paying out claims, provincial health departments do not set aside money for this. They are forced to divert funds from other functions to settle claims.
“In the Eastern Cape the amounts paid for legal claims are not included as part of the appropriation and funds have to be shifted from other service delivery budgets in order to pay for these claims, which contributes negatively and impacts on the financial sustainability of the department,” said Schneigans.
She said in Gauteng they are faced with a similar situation.
“It was indicated that funds were shifted from goods and services to pay legal claims,” she said.
In KwaZulu-Natal, which has the largest number of claims, the provincial Department of Health has to scour for funds to settle claims.
“There was a high number of legal claims and the department is under pressure in terms of funding to pay these legal claims,” she said.
Schneigans said there was a summit a few years ago to develop a system to reduce claims, but not much progress has been made since then. Instead the number of claims has increased and not gone down as wanted by provincial authorities, she said.
siyabonga.mkhwanazi@inl.co.za
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