David Makhura wants government to fund Gauteng's four main hospitals

Gauteng premier David Makhura has asked the national department to fund four of the province's central hospitals.

The four hospitals include Charlotte Maxeke, Steve Biko, Baragwanath and George Mukhari.

According to Makhura the hospitals are constantly underfunded for their role in the province.

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He said the hospitals incurred accruals which amounted to R1.4bn of the department's total accruals of  R4.9bn.

"We are requesting national government to take over the running of these four hospitals because they service the whole nation.

"However, the province will continue carrying the administration and operation function as delegated," Makhura said.

He said the provincial government had spent too much of its budget subsidising central hospitals instead of strengthening primary healthcare.

According to him, a steady decline since the 2006/2007 in the conditional grants had added pressure on the provincial health budget.

"R115m was incurred as a payment of medico-legal claims. This amount was not budgeted for and has compromised payments of other key non-negotiable items within the central hospitals," he said.

On Tuesday, DA's Jack Bloom said 12 out of 32 Gauteng hospitals lacked permanent CEOs.

Bloom said that some of the hospitals had been run by acting CEOs for up to two years.

"The huge number of acting personnel in key positions is a major reason for poor performance.

"High calibre people need to be recruited as soon as possible to fill these positions," he said.

Earlier this month, the government said it was taking control of healthcare under the National Health Insurance (NHI).