SEVEN months after posts for hospital chief executives were advertised the health department is nowhere near finalising the hiring of the new heads.

This was revealed yesterday in the Gauteng Legislature.

In February Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi advertised 92 CEO posts to ensure that heads of hospitals were at the appropriate level of deputy director-generals and that they had health backgrounds.

At the time Motsoaledi said the positions were either occupied by people who did not have health backgrounds or were at lower levels.

Yesterday Gauteng MEC for health Hope Papo said: "It is a national department process. We were supposed to start the shortlisting process on August 17 but had to postpone it because of what happened in Marikana.

"We had to get involved because the North West government wanted to use the GaRankuwa Forensic Pathology services. We will get a new date for shortlisting soon."

But the national department's Joe Maila said: "The delay is only because the process is done centrally at the national office. It is not as easy as it seems because it has to be done for all hospitals in the country.

"For some provinces we are done shortlisting and in other provinces we are just getting started."

Another question that Papo could not answer was how many operations were cancelled or postponed at the Charlotte Maxeke Academic Hospital.

He said: "I do have the statistics readily available. I am waiting for them to be verified. The main reasons operations are postponed or cancelled are patient-related - either the patient has eaten, they are unfit for surgery or they do not arrive.

"Other reasons are theatre-related. For instance there is an overbooking or a doctor or anaesthetist is unavailable."

The Democratic Alliance's Gauteng shadow health MEC Jack Bloom said: "It is unacceptable that they do not have the figures. This means they do not keep records." - monamat@sowetan.co.za