A total of 71 289 HIV/AIDS patients on anti-retroviral treatment have gone ‘missin’g in Gauteng. This was disclosed last week Friday at a Gauteng Legislature Health Committee meeting that considered the Second Quarter Report of the Gauteng Health Department which covers the July to September period this year.
According to the report, there are 723 454 adult patients remaining on ARV treatment, as opposed to the target of 788 160, which indicates a “possible loss to follow-up of 64 706 patients.”
Furthermore, 27 691 of 34 274 targeted children remained on ARV treatment, which indicates 6 583 missing children with interrupted ARV treatment.</p><p>The department ascribes this to poor record-keeping, poor data quality management and incomplete data but opposition parties said that it seems that the problem is far broader than poor data management.
TB treatment is also said to be suffering as the loss to follow-up of TB patients has also gone up to 5.8%, missing the 5.1% target.Interrupted ARV treatment is extremely serious as patients can die from lack of treatment or develop drug resistance when they come back on treatment.Opposition parties, in particular the DA, said, “Strengthening the district health system with community health workers would help to reduce the number of missing AIDS and TB patients.”
Meanwhile the DA has said that the Gauteng Provincial Government Departments owes DA governed municipalities in the province R443 million which is money desperately needed to address the service delivery backlog left behind by the ANC. Of the R613 million owed to all municipalities across the province, 72% of this will be split between the cities of Johannesburg, Tshwane and Mogale City.
“It is impossible for municipalities to roll out quality services if the funding required to do so is not available. “Without it, business comes to a halt and residents are denied access to the heartbeat of democracy – a functioning local government.”
The departments of Infrastructure Development, Health, Education, Roads and Transport, Social Development and Human Settlements have apparently failed to live up to their obligations to transfer funds which they received as grants from National Treasury to municipalities in the province.
