The Department of Health in the Eastern Cape has conceded paying staff at the Orsmond Tuberculosis Hospital in Kariega, despite the facility being closed.
This after the Democratic Alliance (DA) raised concerns in a Parliamentary question on the department paying 45 medical employees at the facility, which was closed two years ago.
The DA’s Jane Cowley, a member of the provincial Legislature, explains:
“They have been sitting there since October 2021 with no patients at all. There is clearly no action taking place and they are literally sitting doing nothing and earning full salaries for doing nothing, which, to my mind, is unacceptable and morally reprehensible.”
“Because they have got the CCND, the system to distribute chronic medications to patients with TB, there was less need for hospitalisation and there is a full TB hospital in that district. The utilisation rate has dropped so dramatically that it was not worth them keeping the hospital open anymore,” adds Cowley.
The audio below is reporting more on the story:
