The Gauteng health department is adequately funded, and the key issue it should look at is planning.

This is the view of Gauteng Treasury’s head of department, Ncumisa Mnyani, who made a presentation at the SA Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) on Monday.

The commission held an engagement session with the departments of health, infrastructure development and treasury as part of its monitoring of the healthcare system. 

“We give you what you are able to spend. The key issue is planning. Planning is very important and they [health department] are lagging behind,” Mnyani said.

Earlier, the commission heard the health department’s maintenance budget was underfunded, but the treasury painted a completely different picture.

Mncedisi Vilakazi made a presentation on behalf of the treasury and said the health department’s annual financial statements and analysis of its spending showed the department was unable to spend in areas such as:

• compensation of employees (healthcare professionals);
• goods and services (core service delivery items); and
• infrastructure (maintenance, rehabilitation and new projects).

“The trends show despite the significant budgets allocated to the Gauteng health department, actual spending has been lower, thereby resulting in underspending.

“The notion and basis for any possible underfunding may not hold, given the inability of Gauteng health to spend the full allocated budgets. Instead, there should be more focus on addressing all factors and causes behind underspending,” Vilakazi said.

He emphasised that with a budget of R59.4bn, the health department received the lion’s share of the provincial budget, and said the department should be doing better to service the people of Gauteng, given the resources at hand.

Gauteng health head of department Dr Nomonde Nolutshungu said the biggest challenge the department faces is medico-legal claims. She said these took the biggest chunk of the department’s budget, and it was hard for her to sign a claim form to comply with a court order.

“One wonders if this is a true reflection of the quality of care in our facilities or if there is a new element creeping in, which is mostly with neonatal cases,” she said.

Nolutshungu said the department was looking closely into the cases to check whether the causes were skills-related or due to problems with equipment.

The three departments have committed to meeting more frequently to see how they can better handle challenges faced by the health department. 

Buang Jones, provincial head of the SAHRC, said most of the things mentioned during the presentation were historical, but the commission was heartened to see the commitment to address the challenges. 

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