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The Gauteng Health Department is projected to overspend its budget by R2.275 billion even though it is failing key health targets, including poor emergency response times and low child immunisation.

According to reports tabled recently at the Gauteng Legislature’s Health Committee, the budget was adjusted upward by R2.4 billion, from R60.1 billion to R63.5 billion, but this is not enough to offset extra expenses.

The 20% overspend in Administration is due to legal fees and the centralised payment of medico-legal claims - R623 million was paid out to claimants and an astounding R597 million was paid to private attorneys and the State legal services.

Emergency Management Services (EMS) received a R721 million increase to pay for ambulances, but overspent its budget to pay for machinery and equipment of the accruals on EMS vehicles from the previous year’s budget.

The EMS response time for Priority 1 calls was only 61% within 30 minutes, as against the world standard of 80% of P1 calls within 15 minutes.

Immunisation for children under 1 years old was 77% as against the 90% target. And measles second dose coverage was 74% instead of the 92% target.

This compares to immunisation rates that used to be 100% several years ago.

Another concerning failure is with antiretroviral treatment (ART) for HIV/Aids - instead of the 95% target, the Adult ART adherence rate is 66% and viral suppression is 67%. This is blamed on loss to follow-up.

The saddest failure is the death of 1005 under-5 children out of 51001 live births. This is a 2% death rate instead of the targeted 1.6% death rate, and is ascribed to early neonatal deaths that could be prevented with more neonatal beds and equipment.

Meanwhile, the accruals from unpaid bills has ballooned to R4.9 billion, and there was R1.7 billion irregular expenditure.

Since money doesn’t grow on trees, the overspent money will need to be recovered from the 2024/25 health budget.

Despite all the promises for improvement, the department remains mired in crisis because of gross mismanagement.

The DA has a rescue plan to fix this department to save lives and alleviate the suffering of sick and injured people.

Issued by Jack Bloom MPL - DA Gauteng Shadow MEC for Health