Unpaid doctors’ salaries have been sorted and department is well run: Gauteng health MEC

Despite growing calls for an overhaul of the department, Gauteng health and wellness MEC Nomantu Nkomo-Ralehoko has defended the department, saying there is no crisis.

Speaking to TimesLIVE Premium on the sidelines of a memorial lecture in honour of ANC stalwart Adv Duma Nokwe, Nkomo-Ralehoko said she had cleaned up the department after her appointment in 2022. 

“There were systems that were wrong because we were operating in silos in the department, but I have managed to clear all those things. The department is well run now ... even on the financials there is nothing you can say is not done,” she said. 

Nkomo-Ralehoko said the department had reviewed its processes and officials at provincial hospitals were now adhering to them.

This week the Sunday Times reported that doctors in some of the provincial hospitals had not been paid for more than three months.

The news report detailed how a doctor at Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital in Soweto was one of many struggling to survive because of the Gauteng health department’s failure to pay doctors’ salaries. 

Last week doctors at Dr George Mukhari Academic Hospital in Ga-Rankuwa held a two-day protest over nonpayment of salaries. Some have not received pay for two months.

While there appears to be no pattern to the nonpayment, the issue is believed to have affected most hospitals across the province. However, Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital, Dr George Mukhari Academic Hospital and Baragwanath are believed to be the worst affected, along with several clinics in the Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni metros.

The salary crisis is the latest in a string of controversies plaguing the dysfunctional Gauteng health department, the report detailed. 

Nkomo-Ralehoko said their new processes had incurred some hiccups. Doctors were blamed for having submitted their payment invoices late. 

“They submitted their claims late. The department of eGovernment controls that [payment]. It’s unacceptable that when people are working, we must not pay them and it’s not like we don't have money, we have money,” she said. 

The MEC said officials have given her a breakdown of doctors who were not paid and while there was a late payment challenge in some institutions, some hospitals had a 100% payment record.

She said the issue had been sorted out and the doctors are now in the system and would be paid.

She said the department had done the work to correct the system at Tembisa Hospital, and the new CEO had brought stability to the hospital and some of the wards were being renovated. 

Tembisa Hospital has been in the news after News24 revealed the extent of corruption involving high-ranking officials during the Covid-19 pandemic. 

Last year the SIU revealed how taxpayer losses to corruption at Tembisa Hospital had risen to almost R3bn.