After butting heads earlier this week, the CEO of Rahima Moosa Hospital, Nozuko Mkabayi, and Joburg health MMC Ashley Sauls are set to meet next week.

This will be a second attempted meeting to iron out issues of the treatment of patients at the hospital.

According to Sauls, Mkabayi refused to allow his support staff into a meeting on Wednesday, which degenerated into a clash of egos. Sauls claimed that Mkabayi even mistook one of his close protection officers for Patriotic Alliance president Gayton McKenzie.

Rahima Moosa Hospital has been in the news recently after a video of unattended pregnant women caused outrage on social media. 

Sauls included the video in a tweet that he shared. He said he had received complaints about women waiting for three days while sleeping in hospital corridors waiting to deliver.

Mkhabayi hit back in a radio interview, accusing Sauls of violating patients' rights by showing their faces on social media.

On Thursday, Sauls accused Mkabayi of using him as a scapegoat for her failure to run the hospital properly.

“Yesterday [Wednesday], I was invited to a meeting with her and I came with my support staff team and she didn’t want my team there. She was rude and abrupt. I had to put my foot down because [I'm] not employed by her but [am] a senior official in the City of Johannesburg in charge of health.

“The team was necessary and I said if she didn’t want them in there, I'd see her when she was ready,” he said.

Sauls said he was committed to serving the residents of Johannesburg, his constituency.

“We’re going to have another meeting next week. I’m sending a letter to the health MEC, Nomathemba Mokgethi, because hospitals is not my competence. I have to write to the MEC to give my version of what transpired and call the MEC to act.

“It’s my fiduciary responsibility to hold her [Mkabayi] accountable. I’m still going to go there periodically to check if there is improvement.

“Mine is to ensure better services for the most vulnerable in the community. On a procedural end, mine is to the write to the MEC to ensure the issue is resolved.

“No-one can stop me from going to the hospital and I’ll keep going forward,” Sauls said.