ANC says Botha must resign over medicine disaster

The Western Cape ANC says the DA's health MEC Theuns Botha must take full responsibility for the medicine dispensing chaos in the province.

ANC spokesperson for health Mcebisi Skwatsha (ANC) says: "MEC Botha must resign and apologise for the widespread debacle which has inconvenienced and endangered the lives of many poor and vulnerable patients in the Western Cape. He is the political head of that department which is riddled with many cases of poor service delivery. As MEC he is the responsible person and the buck stops with him as he is accountable to the public and voters.

"The ANC calls on Botha not to run away from this huge responsibility, but to face up to the truth and without any delay do the honourable thing. Patients have to wait for days before they get the chronic medicine their lives depend on. They may be prone to other ensuing problems such as increased strokes and heart attacks because they do not get their medication on time," says Skwatsha.  

The department is haunted in media reports for poor service delivery, a massive shortage of beds in many hospitals, the scandal of patients sleeping on floors in some hospitals, rescheduling of operations due to various problems and staff saying they are working under continued disaster conditions.

"This debacle is also evident in the recent investigation by South Africa's Public Protector Thuli Madonsela at the Gugulethu hospital where the service was found to be very poor, the place dirty and workers were found to be drunk on duty. It is a travesty that the DA-led government claims to be among the best in the world, while people are dying in queues at clinics, babies die of diarrhoea due to poor infrastructure and many suffer because of poor services," Skwatsha added.  

Statement issued by Mcebisi Skwatsha, ANC Western Cape spokesperson on health, April 13 2012

Click here to sign up to receive our free daily headline email newsletter