DA blames Health bosses for deadly 'dysfunction' at Kimberley hospitals

THE DEMOCRATIC Alliance (DA) in the Northern Cape has laid the blame for the deaths of mental health patients in Kimberley squarely at the feet of provincial health management, following damning revelations by the Health Ombud, Professor Taole Mokoena.

In a strongly worded statement, the DA spokesperson on Health in the province, Isak Fritz, said that while the Health Ombud’s findings around critical staff shortages, the lack of senior clinicians, and inadequate care at both the Kimberley Mental Health Hospital and Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe Hospital demanded urgent attention, they also pointed to a much deeper and long-standing crisis.

“The Kimberley Mental Health Hospital has been a feeding trough for corruption since before its first brick was laid. Over 20 years, and more than R2.1 billion later, it remains an uninhabitable monument to corruption,” Fritz said.

“It is clear from Professor Mokoena’s report that patients ‘froze to death’, dying from hypothermia and pneumonia, during the more than 12-month period during which the facility was left powerless and without warmth, following incidents of cable theft.”

Despite repeated warnings and appeals for intervention, Fritz said nothing had been done to prevent the tragedy.

“For the past fifteen years, the DA has cautioned of ongoing corruption and mismanagement at the facility, from the construction phase to its eventual operationalisation,” said Fritz, “Last year, before news of the deaths broke, the DA warned that the mental hospital posed a hotbed of risks to patients and staff. We called on Health MEC Maruping Lekwene and acting HOD Mxolisi Mlatha for a high-level intervention, but to no avail.” 

Fritz added that the Department of Labour subsequently also threatened the hospital with a looming prohibition notice last year.

He rejected any attempt to scapegoat doctors and nurses working under impossible conditions, saying responsibility lies with provincial Health leadership.

“Instead of attacking burnt-out, short-staffed and under-resourced doctors and nurses, the minister must restore stability to the top provincial management of the Health Department. This is a department led by an acting HOD and an acting CFO, who stand in for a criminally convicted HOD and a CFO fingered in PPE corruption, and who continue to earn top salaries while occupying alternate positions within the department."

Calling for urgent reforms, Fritz argued that dysfunction at the top had allowed gross human rights violations to persist and that only a complete overhaul of provincial health leadership would restore integrity and care within the system.