In response to scathing findings by the Public Protector, a committee has been established that will ensure long-delayed repairs at the fire-damaged Charlotte Maxeke Academic Hospital are expedited, promised Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi on Tuesday, after he, Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana and Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi visited the facility, reports SA News.
“As the national Department of Health, the National Treasury, the Premier’s Office in Gauteng, the provincial Department of Health and the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) – who are the developers – we have a plan,” he announced.
He said meetings would take place every Tuesday – chaired by Lesufi – to monitor progress “and make sure they fix things”.
“But beyond the report, there are things we have already started in the national department … We had to change how things are procured and that will be part of the work the committee will be doing.”
He said he had “received assurances from the DBSA that the wards in the hospital will be open in August”, and the parking area would be ready in October.
In a report released last week, the disgraceful failure by the Gauteng Department of Health and the Department of Infrastructure (DID) to do critical repairs to the hospital since the devastating fire in 2021 was slammed by the Public Protector, who has now urged the Premier to implement lifestyle audits, and to exercise “clear and decisive oversight over the implementation of the mandated remedial action”, reports EWN.
In her no-holds barred report, Public Protector Kholeka Gcaleka also recommended Lesufi take disciplinary action against officials implicated in the failed repair project.
Meanwhile, the respected professor who initially blew the whistle on the corruption some five years ago said the fraud was ongoing and endemic – while social justice activist Mark Heywood described Gauteng Health and the DID as “a mafia”.
The formal report into the state’s response to the blaze, which previously found that severe failures by both the Health Department and the DID contributed to years of delays, underspending and poor project management, wants officials responsible for supply chain management, procurement and financial management to be subjected to stringent lifestyle audits, conducted in collaboration with the Special Investigating Unit (SIU).
“The longer it takes to address these repairs, the more the cost is going to be,” Gcaleka warned.
Furthermore, the report has called for accounting officers involved in the fire repair project and who remain employed by the state to face consequence management within 60 days.
The Public Protector has directed that the National Minister of Health, alongside the Gauteng MECs for Health, Finance and Infrastructure, ensure that the remedial actions are fully and urgently implemented.
Gcaleka said her findings highlighted gross maladministration and “a compromised system that creates a breeding ground for corruption”.
Ongoing
On Sunday, after the release of the findings, the hospital’s head of Internal Medicine said corruption continues to cripple the facility.
Professor Adam Mahomed, who had first submitted a complaint to the Public Protector’s Office in 2022 after the massive fire at the hospital, said he had reached breaking point, and would be retiring shortly.
In an emotional interview with the Sunday Times, he said the hospital remained totally dysfunctional “because of the bulls**t of politics”.
He said officials continued to present an inaccurate picture of progress at the facility. “They are lying to us. There’s still stealing and fraud. Even the successes they claim were not all funded by them. A lot of the fixing that has been done was sorted through private funding.”
Mahomed pointed to critical vacancies that remain unfilled, including anaesthetist posts, as well as the failure to appoint a new Head of Psychiatry for at least six months, which has left services severely compromised and an entire department unable to function properly.
“The hospital’s CEO left at the end of February and was replaced by a temporary CEO from Steve Biko Academic Hospital, who worked here two days a week and left after a month,” he said.
“Then a junior CEO from Helen Joseph Hospital was moved into CMJAH. The rot described by the public protector in 2024 is ongoing: the hospital has not been renovated, wards are not functioning, and the fire issues have not been resolved.”
He said many colleagues were unwilling to speak publicly about the hospital’s problems for fear of being labelled whistleblowers, anti-establishment figures, or public sector workers disloyal to political leaders.
Mahomed said he had spent years battling bureaucracy, political dysfunction and chronic under-resourcing while trying to hold together one of Africa’s most important public hospitals.
The hospital was once regarded as one of the continent’s leading academic and referral facilities, with nearly 2 000 operational beds; major medical, paediatric and obstetric services; and a long history of medical firsts.
Today, large sections are out of operation, critical posts stand vacant, and infrastructure repairs are at a standstill. Meanwhile, patients continue to pay the price of years of delays, infighting and administrative paralysis.
Gcaleka found that while R666m had been allocated for repairs and renovations between 2021 and 2024, just R324m had been spent by March 2024, leaving R342m unused.
For Mahomed, the findings confirm what hospital staff have been dealing with for years and capture only a portion of the crisis.
“The big renovations have still not been done, and wards have not been given back to us,” he said. “There are contract and funding issues, as well as problems with the generators, and departments are still at loggerheads over who must do what,” he said.
“After I wrote to the Public Protector and lodged the complaint, they kept telling me every month they were investigating, but the reality is that absolutely nothing has changed since 2024.”
According to Mahomed, doctors and nurses continue working in a hospital hamstrung by shortages, delays and a procurement system so cumbersome even routine equipment repairs are major obstacles.
Stress
He said he could no longer endure the stress and the personal toll of the job.
“Where has all the money gone? What has happened to the missing consumables you need but are not there because you didn’t know to order them ahead of an emergency you did not predict?”
Human rights and social justice activist Mark Heywood said Mahomed had taken a significant risk in lodging the complaint with the public protector.
“Not only did he risk his job – doing the right thing under a hospital CEO who is complicit in the wrongdoing can be career-limiting – but even more concerning is that he is complaining about and exposing the criminality around the fire as well as the corruption at the facility,” Heywood said.
“Gauteng Health and the Department of Infrastructure & Development are a mafia, and anyone out to expose them puts themselves in danger.
“I’m glad the report has come out and recommendations have been made to the Premier …but I don’t hold much hope [that the situation will be rectified], as it is like talking to the deaf.”
Veteran healthcare activist Dr Aslam Dasoo, convener of the Progressive Health Forum, said the hospital’s prolonged decline was inexplicable. “Are you telling me it’s acceptable that a premier facility in a premier city remains broken after more than five years? It’s an absolute shambles.”
Dasoo said the Progressive Health Forum and SECTION27 had obtained the forensic fire report through a Promotion of Access to Information Act request. The report concluded the blaze was an act of arson, yet no follow-up action had been taken. “Why did (the police) and the (National Prosecuting Authority) ignore their own highly credible forensic report that created a lawful and rational obligation to do so?”
Dasoo said an independent assessment had found that repairs could have been completed in less than a year – and for less than half the amount ultimately budgeted for them.
Gcaleka has referred the matter to the Auditor-General for an investigation into systemic financial failures and procurement breaches.
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
Charlotte Maxeke repairs on track at 90%, but still two-year waiting lists
DoH: R200m to repair KZN healthcare facilities and Charlotte Maxeke repairs expedited
Arson suspicion in second Charlotte Maxeke fire reignites concerns about its future
Phaahla: Crime has delayed repairs to Charlotte Maxeke Hospital