Extract of speech by Jack Bloom MPL, DA Gauteng Health Spokesman on the Gauteng Health Annual Report delivered today in the Gauteng Legislature, November 15 2011:
HEALTH MEC SHOULD CHAIN HERSELF TO DOOR OF NATIONAL TREASURY
Gauteng Health MEC Ntombi Mekgwe should chain herself to the door of the National Treasury and not leave until she gets a once-off grant to pay the hundreds of companies that are owed money for supplying hospitals. The situation is getting desperate as companies stop critical supplies to hospitals.
At Steve Biko Academic Hospital, for instance, operations have been slowed down for three weeks because the air-conditioners are giving problems. Treatment for cancer patients is delayed because the Brachytherapy machine has been out of order since mid-September.
Every single hospital in Gauteng is experiencing problems because of unpaid suppliers. We can't go on like this. Hospitals cannot function without supplies, and companies cannot continue to supply without being paid.
Here is an e-mail that I have received from Mr Guy Williams of a small family-owned cleaning company called Mopping Equipment. He is retrenching two of his seven employees because he is owed R80 000:
"We supply equipment to hospitals in Gauteng. As a result of waiting for payment for up to 6 months we have finally had to start retrenching staff. Hundreds of calls and e mails get the same response. ‘Your payments are in the system, but the payment run hasn't happened'. Sadly, no-one cares. Is there any one I can turn to. We are desperate".
In the gallery here today is Mr Grigor Weightman. His company is called Progress Dental Laboratory and they supply false teeth to the Dental School.
Their annual turnover is only R2.5 million, but he is owed R742 000 by the Gauteng Health Department.
The last payment he got from the GSSC was on 29 June this year. If he is not paid very soon his employees will not get a Christmas bonus and some of them may have to be retrenched.
Please Madam MEC, do what you can.
Issed by Jack Bloom MPL, DA Gauteng Health Spokesman, November 15 2011
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