DA calls for health HOD and MEC to be axed

The DA in the Eastern Cape has singled out provincial health department head Dr Thobile Mbengashe as the root cause of the department’s woes, saying the sooner he is fired the sooner things might turn around.

The party also repeated its call for health MEC Sindiswa Gomba to be removed, saying they were forging ahead with their planned motion of no confidence against her.

DA MPL Jane Cowley said Mbengashe failed to fill 6,500 vacant funded posts by the end of the last financial year.

“Every day that Dr Thobile Mbengashe remains in charge is another day closer to the total collapse of public health in the province.

“Dr Mbengashe has presided over the rampant increase in medico-legal claims against the department, which are now at R30bn-R4bn more than the annual budget for the department,” she said.

She laid the “disastrous provincial response” to the Covid-19 pandemic at his door.

“The latest in a long line of fiascos under the HOD’s leadership is the call by the department of employment & labour to shut down the Frere Hospital in Buffalo City Metro due to non-compliance with health and safety regulations.”

She said departmental failures included inadequate training of healthcare workers, management of personal protective equipment, a backlog of 21,904 pending tests for the province as of last Thursday and no strategy to deal with transmissions of the virus in the province.

Cowley suggested that:

• The department needed to ramp up screening and testing;
• Everyone waiting for their coronavirus test results be placed in quarantine to prevent cluster and local transmission;
• All funded posts be filled; and
• That the number of personnel in provincial laboratories that are analysing tests be doubled to speed up results.

She said the party would table the motion of no confidence in Gomba before the tabling of policy speeches in the legislature on Tuesday.

“The response to the Covid-19 pandemic requires authentic, skilled leadership and this will remain a pipe dream while MEC Gomba and her HOD, Dr Mbengashe, are at the helm.

“It is time for premier Oscar Mabuyane to decide if he is going to put the people of the province first or his political deployees.”

DA Eastern Cape leader Nqaba Bhanga said: “Things are not improving in the Eastern Cape, they are getting worse. Hospitals are not ready.

“There is no proper tracing and testing that is properly managed. The government is unaware of where the people with infections are.”

By Sunday night, the Eastern Cape had recorded 2,690 confirmed Covid-19 cases, 59 deaths and 1,335 recoveries.

Health spokesperson Sizwe Kupelo said: “It is unfortunate that the DA would choose this time of crisis to personalise health issues.

“The enemy we are facing needs all of us to pull together and to work as one as a nation. It is not going to help to single out individuals.”

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