The Democratic Alliance (DA) has requested the MEC of Health, Maruping Lekwene, to report to the legislature on the department’s failure to timeously give effect to critical Memorandums of Understanding (MOU) with medical partners, effectively depriving rural communities of access to health care.
The future of a medical outreach programme, that annually visits the Northern Cape to help address the backlog in medical care in rural areas, hangs in the balance. This, as the department fails to communicate with a non-governmental partner on the renewal of its outreach agreement for 2025.
The NGO is scheduled to bring three medical doctors, one dietician, one counselling social worker, one optometrist, one physiotherapist and one nurse to render additional services at local clinics in far-flung areas of the province, for a full work week. The medical support comes at no additional cost to the department, which is only required to avail pharmaceutical supplies for the outreach.
Since 2023, the DA’s ongoing attempts to address the department’s poor communication with the NGO, via phonecalls, whatsapps and formal letters to the MEC and Acting HOD, Mxolisi Mlatha, plus the submission of formal questions to the executive, have garnered no response other than acknowledgments of receipt.
Ongoing queries relating to the department’s decision approximately a year ago, to cut-off supplies and communication with a private facility that provides 1000 farm workers with access to health care, have also been met with silence. This is despite an MOU between the company and the department, permitting the facility to provide basic health care services via a professional nurse, in exchange for the provision of medication, test kits, clinical tools and stationery.
I have submitted a letter to MEC Lekwene and the legislature’s health portfolio committee, requesting the department to come and account on why it is failing to nurture partnerships, when it present its Annual Performance Plan and budget to the legislature.
With climbing health care backlogs, dwindling resources and deteriorating health care services, the provincial health sector cannot afford to continue snubbing its healthcare partners.