EFF Member of the Provincial Legislature (MPL), Jemina Nanyane, says that government spends millions of rands in the training of doctors and nurses and they are later absorbed by the private sector, instead of the state.

MEC for Health, Montseng Tsiu, during her 2019/20 budget vote speech on Thursday, 11 July 2019, revealed that 1710 nurses are expected to be to appointed at various hospitals by March 2020 with at least 201 already appointed. Nanyane also called on the MEC to look into the dilapidating state of various Community Health Care (CHC) centres across the province.

Nanyane accused Tsiu of neglect and total ignorance to various issues which includes security at hospitals, such as the controversial Pelonomi and the National.

She says Tsiu must personally be held liable for every little incident that took place in those Hospitals and Clinics in the province. This follows two incidents of attacks to doctors in the Pelonomi Hospital in Bloemfontein.

Tabling her budget for the 2019/20 fiscal year, Tsiu confirmed that the department will be allocating resources to beef up security at a number of facilities.

OFM News previously reported that the department approached a private company to provide physical security at the hospital, and also roped in the expertise of the security cluster.

The departmental spokesperson, Mondli Mvambi, said the department embarked on a rigorous venture with hopes of making sure that security issues in that hospital are dealt with promptly.

Mondli said the company assessed the doctors waiting for on-call rooms and they have installed a security gate and say 6 - 7 rooms of these doctors have now been fitted with these security gates.

He said the partnership encouraged the department to negotiate further with the company with the hopes of looking further into other areas such as the paediatrics ward on the third floor of the hospital.

OFM News