Johannesburg - Gauteng Health MEC Qedani Mahlangu has announced a bold plan aimed at drastically reducing the number of babies born with disabilities at all provincial health centres.
Mahlangu said she would urgently establish 10 maternal homes linked to hospitals in all regional centres.
Their role would be to encourage pregnant women to regularly attend their prenatal sessions.
She said the maternal homes would monitor women who had any ailments that could harm mother or child, including being overweight or underweight.
It would further assist nurses to identify HIV-positive mothers early.
Mahlangu said the late detection of health issues was one of the main contributors to children being born with disabilities and resulting in lawsuits against the department.
Mahlangu made the announcement during a provincial legislature standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) meeting to explain her department’s irregular expenditure of more than R1-billion, which was pointed out by the auditor-general in his 2014/2015 report.
Mahlangu told Scopa that some of the irregular expenditures were due to the increasing number of medical lawsuits and money owed to service providers, which dated from many years ago.
Many pregnant women visited clinics only when they were due to give birth and, Mahlangu said, by then complications were occurring.
The Health Department has paid out more than R160-million in medical lawsuits since 2012.
Detailing other reasons for the legal suits, Mahlangu said: “The contributing problems against the efficiency of the department relate to attitude in communication with patients and relatives. Other problems are staff training and proper supervision, building and increasing capacity in proven areas of service delivery, and health professionals’ attitudes and ethics.”
Mahlangu also told Scopa there were a few senior doctors who were neglecting their duties to supervise junior doctors, which had led to reports of negligence.
The MEC, however, appeared optimistic that the Health Department’s appointment of retired judge Neels Claassen would help to reduce the number of lawsuits, including mediating with affected families to avoid long drawn-out legal cases.
The Star