Red tape to be cut as province issues health service pledge

HOSPITAL chief executive officers and health district managers in the Eastern Cape will have the power to appoint staff and buy new equipment, provincial health superintendent-general Tobile Mbengashe says.

The announcement follows visits by the department's rapid response team to a number of hospitals and other facilities in the Chris Hani district last week.

Led by chief director for quality assurance Samuel Beja, the team included directors from the department's infrastructure, supply chain management and human resources units.

A litany of challenges affecting service delivery were identified. These ranged from damaged equipment that needed to be replaced to dysfunctional X-ray machines. Some clinics damaged by storms had not been repaired while staff at some were still owed benefits.

Delays were also being encountered in the appointment of critical staff.

Department spokesman Sizwe Kupelo said some of the challenges encountered were expected to be addressed when Mbengashe joined the team today as it continued with the visits.

The teams were "empowered to take decisions on the spot", Kupelo said.

Mbengashe said during a visit to Frontier Hospital in Queenstown that financial decisions would now be decentralised to hospital CEOs and district managers to fast-track service.

But he warned this would come with added responsibility and accountability.

"Wasteful expenditure and irregular expenditure including corruption will see culprits being sent to jail," he said, while adding that the department would not tolerate any more excuses for poor service delivery.

Such excuses "will now be a thing of the past and tough action will be the order of the day".

Kupelo said the decentralisation of financial powers to hospital heads and district managers represented a new approach to improving service delivery.

Meanwhile, newly appointed Health MEC Pumza Dyantyi will officially launch a health expanded works programme in Qumanco village, near Ngcobo, on Wednesday.

Officials say this will be aimed at improving and revamping dilapidated health facilities in the province. - Sikho Ntshobane