Klerksdorp Record, Stilfontein - In what appears to be a war of attrition, the Northwest government is refusing to renew a license for a 295-bed private hospital that its owners claim has been patient-ready for five years, potentially providing jobs to fifty people. This includes twenty-five doctors and ten nurses.
The Duff Scott Hospital, a former mine facility with scope for operating theatres, ICU wards and an ambulance on hand, would alleviate pressure on the two hugely over-subscribed public hospitals in Klerksdorp.
According to its CEO and shareholder representative, Anissia Botha, opening the doors of Duff Scott Hospital with its willingness to partner with the province and charge affordable prices, (plus free patient transport), would improve healthcare delivery and help boost the economy.
She claims to have spent over R80 million upgrading, repairing and providing security to protect the former mine-hospital, a stone’s throw away from the mine shaft where 78 Zama-zamas died in January this year after remaining underground to avoid police arrest in Operation ‘Vala Umgodi”.
“I’m sure we would have saved lives, being right there. Ironically, the health department granted us a temporary one hundred bed license earlier during Covid to function under contract as an infectious-diseases hospital,” she says, shaking her head.
Botha brought in high threat security for the hospital following Zama-zama looting and decimation in 2015, (a year after her consortium bought the hospital). However, the Northwest health department declined to renew the previous 295 bed license from 2013, thus preventing the hospital from operating. The hospital has Level One BEE status.
Citing the National Health Act, Health MEC, Sello Lehari, said the license application was declined because the Dr Kenneth Kaunda District, (in which Duff Scott Hospital falls), was “in excess of their allocated beds”.
However, in March 2015, he overturned a license rejection by the Private Facilities Adjudication Committee, (PFAC) - on condition that the hospital reopen within six months, something Botha says was impossible given the extensive repair and refurbishment required.
Asked what the current outstanding requirements, (if any), were for the hospital’s license application to be finalized, Lehari said it was a “progress report on operating 100 beds,” which his officials found compliant during their last inspection on August 15 last year.
“Once the management indicates the facility readiness, the department will conduct a pre-occupation inspection so as to issue a license,” he added.
Lehari said job losses in the area began with the mine closure and that this, combined with the newly bought hospital being subsequently severely vandalized, contributed to the hospital’s non-functionality.
Botha says she’s in a paradoxical bind: she needs the license to build patient and operational capacity - but cannot afford to continue forking-out money for security and more upgrading in the ongoing hiatus. She wants to build up to the full 295-bed capacity and says a mere 100-bed license, (which the province is willing to grant), won’t foot the bills.
“You can’t chop off somebody’s leg and then claim they can’t walk because they cannot afford to buy a prosthetic leg!” she declares.
The provincial health department inspected the hospital, “and we’ve complied with most of their tick list like elbow taps - but putting in gas lines at R30 million (for example), is a financial bridge too far when we have no income stream,” she says.
Veteran DA councilor for Stilfontein, Portia Burrell is more forthright; “with the ANC, it’s all about needing a favor, or a stake for a pal - or something. They must tell us what’s holding them back. At Klerksdorp and Tshepong Hospitals people have to wait for somebody to die or be discharged before they can be admitted.
“One ambulance serves our entire sub district. Residents tell me that if they call for an ambo at 8:00, they get a call at 20:00 to ask if they still want them to come,” she asserts.
She’s planning public representative and township community visits to Duff Scott Hospital followed by a protest march to the legislature should no satisfactory answers be forthcoming.
Millions spent on malpractice suits
An indication of how financially beleaguered/incapacitated the NW health department is, is that, between April 2024 and March this year, it settled eleven medico legal cases against it, for R80,35 million.
These are among 414 medical malpractice and negligence/wrongful death claims the province is currently assessing.
Lehari, admitted to the legislature on April 9 this year, “with the ongoing budget cuts, there is simply not enough money to cater for both services and medico-legal claims simultaneously”.
He said the department was not currently working with any legal or insurance bodies to manage and mitigate the financial risks.
Botha says Duff Scott Hospital would drain patients from 60km radius, including Klerksdorp, Orkney, Stilfontein and Hartbeesfontein, as it has done previously. A new medical school is due to open in Potchefstroom in 2028. An estimated 850 post-community service doctors nationally are currently without jobs.
Over half a dozen former officials of the Northwest Health Department have been arrested in connection with corruption scandals involving fraud and tender irregularities amounting to hundreds of millions of rands, dating back to 2008. The officials, including some former heads of department, first appeared in court last year.
Burrell summed up the situation; “despite Duff Scott Hospital being (potentially) fully operational during business hours and offering critical healthcare services in Stilfontein, the Department’s failure to provide a valid license for over a decade has crippled the ability to serve the community to its full potential, particularly in becoming a 24/7 healthcare facility. In 2014, the Department failed to issue a copy of the original license, a misstep that led to over R80 million in infrastructure losses due to theft, vandalism, and decay by illegal miners.”
She adds: “In August 2024, an inspection team conducted a de facto inspection, followed by the official one two days later, yet handed the hospital a new compliance inspection tool that the hospital was expected to fulfil within twelve working hours.
“The hospital was transparent about its inability to meet these new compliance requirements without access to funding, which, ironically, depends on having a current license. In my view it was to create a systemic trap.”
