The people of the Eastern Cape have been left to fend for themselves in their time of crisis, with calls for help going unanswered, because the Department of Health has prioritised millionaire manager salaries over frontline services.
Across the province, health facilities are once again unreachable. Phone lines have been cut because the Department has failed to pay its bills, leaving patients, families, and medical professionals unable to contact hospitals and clinics in times of emergency.
If you need to phone a hospital for help – sorry.
If you are in labour and need an ambulance – sorry.
If you want to make an appointment for outpatient services – sorry, sorry, sorry.
This is not an isolated incident. It is the direct result of years of financial mismanagement, ballooning medico-legal claims, and wasteful spending on non-essential programmes designed to benefit cronies instead of communities. While the Department juggles which service provider to pay next, essential services are collapsing and people are dying as a result.
Patients die every day while they wait for surgery, cancer treatment, ambulances, medication, or even a phone call for help. This crisis is not just about unpaid bills; it is about a government that has abandoned the people it is meant to serve.
Unless urgent action is taken, the Eastern Cape Department of Health’s failures will spiral further out of control. More medico-legal claims will follow. More people will suffer. More lives will be lost.
I will be laying a formal complaint with the Public Protector, Advocate Kholeka Gcaleka, to investigate the Department’s financial mismanagement, failure to pay essential service providers, and ongoing failure to deliver basic healthcare services to the people of this province.
The people of the Eastern Cape deserve better. They deserve access to healthcare. They deserve the right to call for help in an emergency. They deserve a government that puts their lives before the pockets of connected cadres. The DA will continue to fight for their right to healthcare and a life of dignity.