Page 7 - Jack Bloom News Today

Patients and staff at Helen Joseph Hospital have been battling with terrible conditions after being without water for almost a week.

The Gauteng health department allegedly failed to spend R2.7 billion of its 2022/23 financial budget, according to DA health spokesperson Jack Bloom, but the department has yet to comment.

The Gauteng health department has underspent R2.7bn of its budget in the 2022/2023 financial year.

The DA says clean linen shortages have been experienced by 23 out of 34 Gauteng public hospitals since January last year.

Some Gauteng hospitals have had to cancel surgical operations due to a lack of clean linen, health MEC Nomantu Nkomo-Ralehoko revealed on Thursday.

Dr Kathryn Smith, an interdisciplinary visual and forensic artist and chairperson of the Visual Arts Department at the university, said the number of missing and unidentified bodies lying in laboratories across the country was closer to 10000 bodies each year.

A lack of funds, load shedding, no beds for the intensive and high care units, and industrial action are some factors that led to the cancellation of more than 2 000 operations at the Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital in less than 18 months.




The party says that since the start of 2022, at least 2 218 operations have been cancelled or deferred by the hospital that was damaged by a fire in 2021.

The DA has raised concerns about the delayed disciplinary cases against Tembisa Hospital CEO Dr Ashley Mthunzi and suspended CFO Lerato Madyo.

Provincial health MEC Nomantu Nkomo-Ralehoko considers holding hospital CEO's more accountable for medico-legal claims when she presented a budget vote speech at the Gauteng legislature on Thursday.