Gauteng Health has informed state hospitals that all appointments of new personnel are frozen 'due to the ever-increasing over-expenditure on the compensation of employees budget', writes Jack Bloom MPL, Democratic Alliance Gauteng Shadow Health MEC on the Politicsweb site. He says: “This is despite the large increase in the Health budget that was announced this week from R41.9bn to R46.4bn.
“Hospital managers are informed that ‘a decision has been taken to sternly monitor the filling of posts in all facilities’.
“All posts that are currently in the process of being filled are to be put on hold even where interviews have already been conducted.
“Furthermore, all adverts and filling of posts is now centralised, which takes away the previous autonomy of hospitals in this matter.
“The drastic measure of freezing posts is bound to cause problems, particularly when critical positions need to be filled rapidly. A more considered approach is needed to ensure that health care does not deteriorate because of key staff vacancies.”