‘They’re still lying to us about the shocking state of Charlotte Maxeke’

A senior doctor who risked his career and personal safety to expose the rot at Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital (CMJAH) says he has reached breaking point and is leaving the public health sector.

Prof Adam Mahomed, the hospital’s highly respected head of internal medicine, submitted a complaint to the public protector’s office in 2022 after a massive fire at the hospital five years ago.

On Friday, public protector Kholeka Gcaleka released the damning findings of her investigation, which highlighted gross maladministration at the hospital and “a compromised system that creates a breeding ground for corruption”.

In an emotional and hard-hitting interview with the Sunday Times, Mahomed said the hospital remained totally dysfunctional “because of the bulls**t of politics”.

He said officials continued to present an inaccurate picture of progress at the facility. “They are lying to us. There’s still stealing and fraud. Even the successes they claim were not all funded by them. A lot of the fixing that has been done was sorted through private funding.”

Mahomed pointed to critical vacancies that remain unfilled, including anaesthetist posts, as well as the failure to appoint a new head of psychiatry for at least six months, which has left services severely compromised and an entire department unable to function properly.

“The hospital’s CEO left at the end of February and was replaced by a temporary CEO from Steve Biko Academic Hospital, who worked here two days a week and left after a month,” he said. “Then a junior CEO from Helen Joseph Hospital was moved into CMJAH. The rot described by the public protector in 2024 is ongoing: the hospital has not been renovated, wards are not functioning, and the fire issues have not been resolved.”

Mahomed also criticised the government for paying doctors their overtime late while simultaneously accusing health-care workers of using public sector hours to work in private health care. He said the latter complaint was an emotional strategy to deflect from real challenges.

The Gauteng health department and the department of infrastructure & development are a mafia, and anyone out to expose them puts themselves in danger.

—  Human rights and social justice activist Mark Heywood

He said many colleagues were unwilling to speak publicly about the hospital’s problems for fear of being labelled whistleblowers, anti-establishment figures, or public sector workers disloyal to political leaders.

Mahomed says he is drained and feeling defeated. He has spent years battling bureaucracy, political dysfunction and chronic under-resourcing while trying to hold together one of Africa’s most important public hospitals.

“[I’m exhausted] because of this political bulls**t — of not getting what you need, of having to fight every day for ordinary things that should be automatically provided for you to do your job. I’m tired, and the stress levels are not worth it,” he said.

The hospital was once regarded as one of Africa’s leading academic and referral facilities, with nearly 2,000 operational beds; major medical, paediatric and obstetric services; and a long history of medical firsts.

Today, large sections of the hospital are out of operation, critical posts stand vacant and infrastructure repairs are at a standstill. Meanwhile, patients continue to pay the price of years of delays, infighting and administrative paralysis.

Public protector Kholeka Gcaleka’s report found severe maladministration and linked project delays, budget underspending and poor service delivery to “a compromised system that creates a breeding ground for corruption”.

Gcaleka found that while R666m had been allocated for repairs and renovations between 2021 and 2024, just R324m had been spent by March 2024, leaving R342m unused.

For Mahomed, the findings confirm what hospital staff have been dealing with for years and capture only a portion of the crisis.

“The big renovations have still not been done, and wards have not been given back to us,” he said. “There are contract and funding issues, as well as problems with the generators, and departments are still at loggerheads over who must do what,” he said.

“I wrote to the public protector and lodged the complaint. They kept telling me every month they were investigating, but the reality is that absolutely nothing has changed since 2024.”

According to Mahomed, doctors and nurses continue working in a hospital hamstrung by shortages, delays and a procurement system so cumbersome even routine equipment repairs are major obstacles.

He cited endoscopy services as an example. Specialised scopes get broken and require repairs at a cost of between R10,000 and R15,000. But repair requests get blocked by administrative red tape.

“You fill out forms for authorisation and get told you used the wrong form or put the incorrect CEO name on it, so you have to redo the paperwork, and everything gets delayed. It’s an obstructive system, so you get it fixed with private funding.”

Mahomed turns 55 next year, and he plans to accept the early retirement package offered to public health workers.

After years of fighting to keep CMJAH functioning, he says he can no longer endure the stress and the personal toll the job is taking on him.

“Where has all the money gone? What has happened to the missing consumables you need but are not there because you didn’t know to order them ahead of an emergency you did not predict?”

Human rights and social justice activist Mark Heywood said Mahomed had taken a significant risk in lodging the complaint with the public protector.

“Not only did he risk his job — doing the right thing under a hospital CEO who is complicit in the wrongdoing can be career-limiting — but even more concerning is that he is complaining about and exposing the criminality around the fire as well as the corruption at the facility," Heywood said.

“The Gauteng health department and the department of infrastructure & development are a mafia, and anyone out to expose them puts themselves in danger.

“I’m glad the report has come out and made recommendations to Gauteng premier Panyaza Lesufi, but I don’t hold much hope [that the situation will be rectified], as it is like talking to the deaf.”

Veteran health-care activist Dr Aslam Dasoo, convener of the Progressive Health Forum, said the hospital’s prolonged decline was inexplicable. “Are you telling me it’s acceptable that a premier facility in a premier city remains broken after more than five years? It’s an absolute shambles.”

Dasoo said the Progressive Health Forum and Section27 had obtained the forensic fire report through a Promotion of Access to Information Act request. The report concluded the blaze was an act of arson, yet no follow-up action had been taken. “Why did [the police] and the [National Prosecuting Authority] ignore their own highly credible forensic report that created a lawful and rational obligation to do so?”

Dasoo said an independent assessment had found that repairs could have been completed in less than a year — and for less than half the amount ultimately budgeted for them.

Gcaleka has referred the matter to the auditor-general for an investigation into systemic financial failures and procurement breaches at CMJAH. She has also recommended that Gauteng premier Panyaza Lesufi strengthen oversight at the facility and require that supply-chain and financial officials undergo lifestyle audits conducted by the Special Investigating Unit.