A Health Department official’s attempt to prevent a disciplinary inquiry into allegations that he helped a law firm in its claims against the department has been stymied by the Northern Cape High Court (Kimberley), which called his application “ill conceived”.
Eastern Cape Health Department legal adviser Elphas Ndhlovu will now have to face accusations that he was in cahoots with a law firm to defraud the department, reports Business Day.
This is a victory for the department in its efforts to tighten governance over the handling of medico-legal claims: 15 148 of them were lodged against provincial Health Departments in 2021/22.
The Eastern Cape had the most, with 4 443 claims, followed by Gauteng (3 783) and KwaZulu-Natal (2 915).
In 2017, the national Health Department set up a task team investigate the management of the claims, focusing on law firms in efforts to discover why it was losing so many of the cases.
In 2020, the task team started investigating Ndhlovu, who argued this was unlawful because the team had not adhered to the chain of command. The task team, however, maintained its authorisation arose from the acting head of Ndhlovu’s own regional department, which was confirmed by the internal labour relations officials.
Ndhlovu was precautionarily suspended in 2021 and told to attend a disciplinary inquiry later that year, which his lawyers said was unlawful because they were challenging it in court.
In response, the department said it had the full authority to hold disciplinary inquiries into its employees, that he had not been prejudiced by any unfair labour practice and that his application to stop the inquiry was premature.
He had also been provided with two opportunities to respond to allegations but had refused to co-operate.
Violet Phatshoane, the Judge President of Northern Cape High Court (Kimberley), ruled there was no basis for any of his arguments and dismissed them as “couched in a slipshod manner and repetitive”.
The case was dismissed with costs.
BusinessDay PressReader article – Court dismisses attempt to dodge inquiry (Open access)
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
Eastern Cape ruling could change how medico-legal claims are settled
‘Fraudulent’ medico-legal claims hobble Eastern Cape Health
State Attorney lawyers investigated for medico-legal fraud