MBOMBELA – It costs the Department of Health an average of R859 932 per month to pay specialists in training as well as specialists jointly appointed by the department and the University of Pretoria who work in Mpumalanga hospitals. Yet it has not made any payment to the university since last September.
The costs, according to health MEC Mr Gillion Mashego, are to pay the doctors’ salaries and allowances enabling them to travel between hospitals in the province for work and the university for academic activities, as well as accommodation.
He was responding to questions asked by Ms Jane Sithole, DA MPL in the provincial legislature. At the end of June, the sum owed by the department amounted to R8,5 million of which R5,7 million was for salaries.
Mr Dumisani Malamule, spokesman for health, says the reason they haven’t paid the university for over a year is that a new agreement is in the making. “The services with the University of Pretoria are operating on a very old agreement signed in 1996. In the meantime the department has drafted a new memorandum of understanding with the university which must now finalise it.”
But Sithole says the department receives a health professionals training and development (HPTD) grant from National Treasury to cover these expenses and while it has spent the entire R90-million grant, the university goes unpaid. “This raises the question as to where the funds are that were received through the HPTD grant.”
Malamule explains that the grant for the 2013/14 financial year has been disbursed through their approved business plan. “This includes salaries of specialists employed by the department and bursaries.”
Sithole says the university continues to provide the services of its students to the benefit of provincial hospitals, filling gaps in critically needed health services. “The health department’s failure to attract and retain suitably qualified medical personnel stems from the poor working conditions in many hospitals and the thankless manner in which staff members are treated.”
Read more on the health department’s finances here and here.
