Andy Duffy
AROUND 8 500 Gauteng medical staff are to be redeployed or retrenched in a dramatic shake up of the province’s 35 hospitals.
Three hospitals will close by February and seven – including Hillbrow -will be replaced with clinics or maternity centures. Staff at others – including Johnnesburg General and Baragwanath – will be reshuffled.
The province’s eight academic hospitals will bear the brunt of the cuts, losing 5 000 personnel – 1 500 doctors, nurses and other specialists. Regional hospitals will gain nearly 2 000 staff through redeployment.
The plans are part of a five-year strategy to cut costs, reallocate resources to deprived areas and build primary health care, provincial health department head Dr Ralph Ngijima says.
The reshuffle will save more than R550- million. Around 2 500 staff affected are to be axed, with the remainder redeployed to meet new staffing:patient ratios. Voluntary retrenchment is also being offered.
Kempton Park, Andrew McColm in Pretoria and Westfort hospitals will close. Hillbrow, Hendrick van der Bijl, Laudium, Lenasia, Ontdekkers, Nigel and Willem Cruywagen hospitals – all judged to have too low bed occupancy rates or to be duplicating services – will be replaced with clinics
The plans, unveiled on Thursday, have still to be discussed in detail with unions. The programme, including funding the retrenchment packages, must also be negotiated with central government. Gauteng health MEC Amos Masondo says the province will call for the moratorium on public service retrenchments to be lifted
The reshape follows severe cuts in the province’s health budget in favour of other previously disadvantaged provinces. Similar cuts have been foisted on the Western Cape.
Gauteng’s R3,8-billion health budget for the current financial year is 10% below last year’s level. It faces a further 10% cut this year.
Masondo says the overrun is being reduced over five years to keep the cuts manageable. “If the department were to attempt to break even in one year, the kind of cuts required would cripple the hospital services and bury any plans to establish community-based primary health care.”
ENDS