The KwaZulu-Natal Department of Health is heading for a financial crisis as it faces severe budget shortfalls that have led to the cutting of key services in recent years.
Members of the Finance Portfolio Committee have warned that the health department requires extraordinary intervention to avert this impending financial disaster.
Committee member Lourens De Klerk urged the department to implement significant changes to address the looming calamity. The financial crunch has resulted in the suspension of key programmes.
The department has revealed that its financial needs continue to outstrip the available funding, requiring R60 billion, while it currently has around R58bn in its coffers.
Health MEC Nomagugu Simelane informed members of the Finance Portfolio Committee last week that, despite an increase of a billion or two in their budget, this was insufficient for the department. As such, austerity measures will remain in place.
“With the budget that we have received, it is clear that the cost containment measures we implemented in the last financial year will have to continue. Although we are above a billion or two, it does not effectively deal with the over-expenditure on Compensation of Employees (COE). We have projected expenditure of R4.6 billion, with about R3 million allocated to COE. We did stop some good services, but even with the COE, we are still under strain. We must say we need to retrench, and we must stop employing,” Simelane said.
“We do not want to make a blanket assessment; we need to be thorough about what we need to put in place,” she added.
This includes potentially reinstating some of the programmes that were stopped last year, as they cannot halt programmes year after year.
The department was informed that the national budget allocation would allow for 800 doctors and 1 200 nurses to be appointed across the country.
“We are now waiting for the allocation from the Department of Health. They will be advertising soon, but we do not know how many workers will be provided for, and we do not want to create high expectations,” Simelane said.
In the report, the department detailed some of its challenges, stating that in the programme of provincial hospital services, over the 2025/6 MTEF, the programme is significantly underfunded following the 2021-2022 MTEF budget cuts, as well as the budget being reprioritised towards Dr Seme Hospital operational costs, estimated at R977 million over the 2025/6 year.
“The current staff are not fully funded, and funding for medicine and medical supplies is insufficient to sustain the current level of services,” one committee member noted.
De Klerk commented: “We understand that this is not the department’s fault; health is in the same position as education, maybe worse. The department is in a bad position, and I do not see any extraordinary answers. If there are not extraordinary steps taken to address the calamity that is coming, it is going to be very bad for our health department.”
Marlaine Nair, DA health committee member expressed understanding of the department’s position concerning budget pressures, asking, “What is the long-term solution? It is clear that this is not sustainable.”
THE MERCURY
