The South African National Treasury has compiled a series of reports detailing gross expenditure irregularities within the Eastern Cape. These reports have been obtained by City Press, and the information now made public. The Treasury reports rely on information gathered from special audit services conducted between 2011 and 2017. The audits scrutinised expenses related to..
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R1.6 billion stolen from the Eastern Cape’s social development fund – Funds meant for roads, houses and schools ended up going towards fancy dinners, luxury cars and expensive suits
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Anger at poor public service delivery in SA townships: ‘If this is freedom, then I don’t want it,’ says Eastern Cape granny –But still the majority people are voting for the ANC
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Eighty-year-old Nothembinkosi Nontsasa cuts a defeated figure, sitting outside her crumbling home in Dlibona village in the small Eastern Cape town of Flagstaff, GroundUp reports. Her adult children can’t get IDs, so the family of six survives off her old age pension. Family and neighbours say the government has failed her, as she lives in..
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Not that we care at all what Mandela’s great-grandson is doing, but he voted for the BLF because he doesn’t like whites, well the feeling is mutual
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Nelson Mandela’s great-grandson, Mayibuye Mandela, says he will vote for BLF provincially and the ANC nationally. His motivation is the BLF’s approach to South Africa’s future and their shared dislike of white people. Mayibuye Mandela, Nelson Mandela’s great-grandson, told the media that he will be putting his ‘X’ next to the Black First Land First..
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SA characterised by chaos and violence – Angry protesters barricaded roads with burning tires and set bus alight in Eastern-Cape
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Protestors in the Gelvandale and Bethelsdorp area barricaded the main roads with burning tyres and stones on Stanford Road, Gail Road and other roads in the Helensvale area and in Bethelsdorp, since 06:00 on 19 February 2019. Public Order Police have been deployed in the areas of Bethelsdorp and Gelvandale and 5 protesters were arrested…
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South Africa needs stronger leadership and increased budgets in mental healthcare
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The psychiatric profession should play a greater role in advocating for patients’ rights and improving management of mental health in the public sector after a series of recent tragedies that highlighted the neglect of mental healthcare in South Africa.
Professor Bonga Chiliza, incoming South African Society of Psychiatrists (Sasop) president, says the deaths of 144 patients in the now-notorious Life Esidimeni tragedy; allegations of abuse and human rights violations at the Tower Psychiatric Hospital in the Eastern Cape; and the suicide of UCT Health Sciences Dean Prof Bongani Mayosi following his battle with depression all point to need for better management of public sector psychiatry
Therefore, the organisation will ramp up its lobbying for mental healthcare to be allocated an equitable share of the national health budget. Chiliza says Sasop would also be doing more to encourage medical students to specialise in psychiatry, in order to grow the numbers of qual
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More borrowing, Eskom secures R1.5 billion loan from French Development Agency, they are so deep in trouble, how on earth will they pay it back?
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The utility’s Group Chief Executive, Phakamani Hadebe, said the multi-tranche loan facility will contribute to Eskom’s plans to strengthen and refurbish the transmission infrastructure.
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NEHAWU is making numerous demands -“We are not in the march because we are lazy to work” – Yeah right, and you think we must believe you?
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Thousands of members and supporters of the National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union (NEHAWU) marched from the Bisho stadium to the office of Eastern Cape Premier Phumulo Masualle on Wednesday afternoon. NEHAWU is making numerous demands. “We are not in the march because we are lazy to work … The Premier never sat in..
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Robbers stole 50 firearms during robbery in the Eastern Cape
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Police have set up roadblocks in and around Port Alfred in the Eastern Cape after an armed robbery occurred Thursday morning, said Captain. Mali Govender, police spokesperson. Police say two armed men entered a business center and locked a woman in the vault before they fled with firearms. Govender said the suspects drove off in..
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Poverty hit record in 2018 due to SA riots over poor services
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The highest number of incidents were recorded in the Eastern Cape, a traditional stronghold for the ANC, which has been in power since the end of apartheid in 1994.
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New trend to help cash strapped SA, pay R4 if you want to use the toilet at Home Affairs
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People visiting Home Affairs in Cofimvaba near Queenstown, Eastern Cape, say security guards force them to pay R4 if they need to use the toilet. If they don’t pay, they are told to “hold it in” or use an open field nearby to relieve themselves. GroundUp visits Home Affairs in Cofimvaba, Eastern Cape This “business”..
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Government’s so called land reform projects a complete failure – four former productive farms in the Eastern-Cape now derelict
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Government farms bought at a cost of R30-million for emerging black farmers in the Eastern Cape are lying in a state of forlorn abandonment. Saturday Dispatch investigated four of the farms in Komga and Igoda and found they had gone from being working farms on purchase to being unproductive and derelict. The farms were bought..
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Probe exonerates Livingstone Hospital in death and maggots row
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Livingstone Hospital investigations have found that nobody can be held liable for two shocking incidents in which a patient fell to his death from the fifth floor and maggots hatched in the wound of another.
But the family of Zakes Mbeki, 29, who fell from the fifth story of the hospital early on Christmas morning, after he was admitted forseizures, want an inquest magistrate to decide who was responsible.
Clint Morris, whose leg wound became infested with maggots after he allegedly begged nurses for days to change his surgical dressings, has vowed to ensure that the hospital admits to wrongdoing.Morris, 40, had been injured in a scooter accident in December.
Eastern Cape health department superintendent-general Dr Thobile Mbengashe ordered an investigation into why maggots had hatched in Morris’s wound.
Provincial health department spokesman Sizwe Kupelo said investigators had concluded in both cases that nobody could be held responsible.
He said it w
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Robot-aided surgery now available in Eastern Cape Province
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The first robot-assisted surgeries to treat prostate cancer in the Eastern Cape were performed by Netcare Greenacres urologists Dr Hannes Brummer and Dr Johan Coetzee this week following the installation of the Da Vinci Si robotic surgical system at the hospital.
Similar robotic systems have been installed at Netcare hospitals in Cape Town, Johannesburg and Durban.
Coetzee and Brummer have been training in South Africa and Europe to perform robot-assisted surgery.
Netcare hospital division managing director Jacques du Plessis said that after robotic surgery systems had been introduced in other provinces there had been an increased number of referrals from other provinces.
“We have now brought the technology and capacity for robotic-assisted procedures to the Eastern Cape.
“We identified a need for the intricate and highly complex interventions the Da Vinci Si system enables trained surgeons to achieve,” he said.
Netcare Greenacres Hospital general man
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Biggest scam in SA history discovered involving medical malpractice lawsuits – state lawyers robbed SA blind of nearly R80 bn
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A report in Sunday Times reveals that a furious Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi has uncovered possibly one of the greatest scams of state funds in South African history.
According to the paper, government is investigating collusion between people suing government hospitals for malpractice and state attorneys who either settle cases that have no merit whatsoever or defend the cases so badly that they invariably lose.
Estimates put the cost at more than R80 billion in a large-scale scam that began at least six years ago and is concentrated on hospitals in the Eastern Cape – although the practice occurs nationwide.
The Special Investigating Unit (SIU) is now probing how several state attorneys allegedly receive kickbacks from claimants’ lawyers in return for intentionally bungling cases.
Justice Minister Michael Masutha and Motsoaledi confirmed to the Sunday Times that the scams are so entrenched that the state has lost at least R60 billion since 2013 in
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Attack on doctors at public hospitals in South Africa sparks security concerns
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The South African Medical Association (Sama), and its Eastern Cape branch, has condemned the lack of proper security at public hospitals in the province after a doctor was assaulted by a patient.
Dr Archie Solombela sustained a fracture to his right arm and a general worker was also hurt during the attack by a psyciatric patient at the Cecilia Makiwane Hospital in East London. According to a report in the Daily Dispatch, suspected mentally ill patients are being admitted to general wards for observation, and because resources are so thinly stretched at government hospitals in the province this takes much longer than the standard 72 hours.
This is an unacceptable situation which requires urgent attention,” Sama said in a statement. “Of concern now is why no precautionary measures were put in place, considering the patient has a known violent history. This indicates either a lack of proper planning and coordination, or a lack of will to ensure the safety of hea
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