syringes
Peter Dickson
Eastern Cape district surgeon Glen du Preez lost his appeal this week against a conviction for theft and fraud as Judge Willem Heath’s special investigative unit continued to probe allegations of rampant corruption among district surgeons in the province.
The former Komga district surgeon and his wife and former co-worker, Elsie du Preez, had been sentenced to five years on 34 charges of submitting inflated patient claims, claiming fake levies from needy patients and fraudulently selling government drugs supplied free of charge.
In the course of the appeal, former employee Princess Tshemese dropped a bombshell: she claimed that Du Preez had routinely allowed black patients to be injected with used syringes – and that although she had no medical training or qualifications, he had allowed her to dispense medicine and treat patients.
The Interim Medical and Dental Council has announced it will relaunch an official inquiry into allegations of misconduct against Du Preez, the first of more than a dozen Eastern Cape district surgeons under investigation by the Heath investigative unit.
Swamped by tons of documents and statements by hundreds of witnesses, the Heath unit is investigating 14 other Eastern Cape district surgeons for allegedly defrauding the Department of Health.
The district surgeons operate from practices across the province and are employed full-time or part-time by Bisho to render primary health care in needy communities. Paid proportionally to patient numbers – and also given free drugs for those patients – the 14 are accused of having systematically boosted district surgery claims by submitting “vastly unrealistic” patient records.
In some areas, because of the drastic shortage of doctors in the Eastern Cape, police are said to be reluctant to investigate corruption claims.
Said Heath unit investigator Mike Campbell this week: “Investigating all the alleged abuses is going to be a mammoth task.
“Most of these cases involve several hundred witnesses and massive loads of documentation. In one case alone, we have received 10 files, which have to be carefully examined and followed up.”
But the Heath unit, already nicknamed “The Untouchables” in the province for its investigators’ effectiveness in recovering stolen state assets and funds, is forcing the medicine train to a shuddering halt.
In the first of a series of similar raids, the unit recently swooped on the practice of Willowmore district surgeon Dr Jacobus van Ravesteyn, who has been accused of defrauding the Department of Health of more than half-a-million rand over 12 months.
Van Ravesteyn, along with Du Preez, was one of 14 district surgeons identified for special attention after a Deloitte & Touche audit of all district surgery claims submitted to the Eastern Cape Department of Health in the 1995/96 financial year.
The accounting firm, which also produced a detailed report on the holes in the system, was appointed by the auditor general in 1996 to expose widespread abuses.
Du Preez and Van Ravesteyn were among the largest claimants. In fact, Van Ravesteyn’s claims were more than twice the provincial average. He is alleged to have submitted a claim, and was paid, for R1 075 176 for the 1995/96 financial year. And that was for treating a staggering 40 596 government patients in the Willowmore district.
Commented one Eastern Cape health worker, shocked by the revelations in court this week: “When the pocket becomes more important than the patient, everything goes out the window.”