Now that premier Zamani Saul has admitted that the state of the mental health hospital in Kimberley is an “embarrassment”, the Democratic Alliance (DA) in the province will continue holding the provincial administration to account so that every resident receives access to quality health care.
During yesterday’s question session in the Northern Cape Provincial Legislature, I asked Saul about his commitments and plans to remedy health care in the Northern Cape. As of July 2025, the Northern Cape Department of Health had a general vacancy rate of 22% and only 33% of the posts available in the Internship and Community Services Programme had been filled. With such an acute shortage of staff, medical facilities are run by skeleton staff components, and the majority of facilities are simply unable to cope with the influx of patients at overcrowded facilities.
The DA welcomes the commitment of additional resources for the health care sector, with the national government promising an extra R161 million for the sector. We will closely monitor financial management to check that this money is used for its intended purpose. It is not just chronic underfunding that is to blame for the department’s woes, but also the misuse and mismanagement of available resources. As of June 2025, for example, the department sits with 3 763 invoices valued at more than R812 million that were not paid within the prescribed 30 days. Lengthy payment periods means that the department ultimately spends more on fines and penalties, which is simply not affordable.
The DA will continue to use the mechanisms at our disposal to demand access to quality health care for every resident in the Northern Cape.