The Gauteng Health Department says medico-legal claims continue to rise, and “extraordinary measures must be taken to prevent a possible collapse of the healthcare system”.
The statement followed an admission that it had received 157 new summonses in the past year, claiming a total of R1.6bn for medical negligence.
The department acknowledged that “the root cause of all medico-legal litigation is negligence in the hospitals and clinics”.
It said the litigation “presents a huge challenge to the financial sustainability of the department”. Because it has been refused extra funding to pay for adverse judgments, its own funds are now being attached by creditors.
The information was disclosed in a presentation by the department at a meeting of the Gauteng Legislature’s Health Committee, where it also admitted that the legal attachment of funds “diminishes the ability of the department to render health services to patients as it is obliged to do in terms of section 27 of the Constitution”.
DA Gauteng shadow MEC for health Jack Bloom said it was distressing that every year, hundreds of patients “suffer horribly because of avoidable medical negligence in Gauteng public hospitals”.
He said he was “alarmed that negligence claims are increasing rather than decreasing, which highlights the continuing failure to fix the deep-rooted problems in this department”.
“Our hospitals urgently need better management, the filling of staff vacancies, and proper equipment, especially in maternity units where most of the court cases arise because of babies injured at birth.”
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
Gauteng Health negligence crisis because of ‘management problems’
Post-death negligence award ‘exposes Gauteng Health to increased liability’
Law firms withdraw from defending Gauteng Health on negligence claims