Msimanga, party members ‘barred’ from inspecting Soweto hospital

The Democratic Alliance’s (DA) Gauteng Premier Candidate Solly Msimanga and other party members have been barred from conducting an oversight inspection at the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital in Diepkloof, Soweto, on Wednesday.

They had intended to engage hospital management on how many illegal foreign nationals were at the facility and how much it cost to treat them.

The party wanted to test Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi’s statements that foreign nationals were burdening the health system, as well as to assess the general condition of the hospital.

Msimanga says they’ll take up the matter with the relevant authorities after being denied access to the facility.

“The first thing that we’ll do is to take it to the Integrity Commission, both in Parliament and in the Legislature as well and going forward, we’re going to make sure that these things don’t happen. And I think that we’re going to ask that there be a policy in place, that stops these kind of things from happening. Because right now, there’s no policy that’s barring us from going in there, but we’re being barred from doing that. That’s something that now needs to be taken very seriously and if people have got nothing to hide, then this kind of thing should not be happening,” says Msimanga.

However, Acting Baragwanath Hospital Spokesperson Zenzo Ndabula denies that they were barred.

“We received correspondence yesterday, and we said, ‘look, in terms of courtesy, our understanding is that politicians will speak to the political head of Department of Health in the province to be able to get that consent, and we have not yet received that consent.’ So, they were not bared. As they were here, I did explain to them the processes, because we’re not in a position to flout the rules, and the CEO did invite them up, but they said that it was already late for them because they’ve long been waiting. But they were not barred,” says Ndabula.