DA requests Health MEC to extend hospital EPWP workers' contracts

4 June 2018

The Democratic Alliance (DA) in the North West is perturbed to learn that contracts of about 50 EPWP support staff workers at Klerksdorp Hospital had been terminated by the end of May 2018.

The DA was informed by the senior management of Klerksdorp Hospital that the North West Department of Health has not granted the hospital permission to renew the contracts of the EPWP support staff, due to cost cutting.

We have therefore written to the Health MEC, Dr Magome Masike, to reconsider this decision and extend the employment contracts of these workers.

The DA recognises the crucial role the EPWP workers play in healthcare services and the decision by the Department of Health to terminate their contracts is ill-considered, as these 50 workers will now be left stranded without any source of income.

The decision will, furthermore, cripple an already broken healthcare system in the province. The cleanliness of the hospital as well as general support to doctors and nurses will be affected by this thoughtless decision.

The DA will continue to highlight defects in the North West health sector to ensure that the poor and vulnerable are not deprived of their constitutional right to proper medical care.

We will also be putting measures in place to ensure that our people are treated with dignity.

Issued by Tutu Faleni, DA North West Spokesperson on Health, 4 June 2018