The Eastern Cape health department has for years made headlines for the wrong reasons. A few weeks before her recent removal as head of the department, Dr Rolene Wagner made the case that the situation is being turned around.
Tiyese Jeranji looks back at Wagner’s presentation at the Rural Health Conference in Chintsa and asks whether the reforms will continue in her absence.
Presenting at the Rural Health Conference, under the theme “Celebrating Rural Service”, Wagner said the health sector faced two critical challenges: The cost of healthcare increasing above the cost of inflation, and the impact of lump-sum payments for medical negligence claims settlements that has led to large accruals and payables . These accruals and payables were for things such as security, medicine supply, cleaning detergents and food supplies.
Meth said that when she became MEC in 2021 she had a report from executive management that for three consecutive years as a department they didn’t have the funds to employ new people as vacancies occurred through natural attrition, be it retirement, resignation or death. “The turnaround strategy consists of five pillars. These are initiatives that are aimed at financial sustainability, integrated medico-legal interventions, service delivery optimisation, among other things,” she said. She added that it was being implemented and some measurable improvements were already being noted.
“With the help of the strategy and other measures in place, there has been a significant reduction in medico-claims and the lump-sum payouts,” Wagner said.As head of department, Wagner would have been the driving force behind many of these strategies. But with her having been moved out of the department, some may question whether the reforms will continue.
“I think that Dr Wagner was trying to make effective changes but it’s very difficult when the department is bankrupt, because service delivery will still be very negatively impacted for a long time to come. There are no quick fixes and there is no financial support forthcoming from either national or provincial Treasury,” she said.
Dr Rolene Wagner, former head of the Eastern Cape health department , with health MEC Nomakhosazana Meth during the presentation of the Human Rights Commission’s provincial inquiry on the right to food and malnutrition. that managing public-funded health networks is complex and turning around an underperforming or dysfunctional department even more so.
Regarding Wagner’s removal, Rensburg said he is not entirely sure how things will work now. “I am honestly not sure as the health department is included in the departments the crack team will be working on. Was the move to defuse tensions between the MEC and the head of the department?”
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