Note to editors: Please find attached soundbite by Madeleine Hicklin MPL.
Every day, thousands of patients arrive at Tembisa Hospital expecting timely treatment and effective services. Instead, they are let down by a hospital where critical management posts are not permanently filled. The current acting Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Dr Rianna Louw, has been in her role since mid-2024 and is one of 27 senior officials in acting positions.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) condemns the culture of prolonged acting appointments at Tembisa Hospital and other health facilities in Gauteng. We call on Gauteng Department of Health (GDoH) MEC, Faith Mazibuko, to urgently appoint qualified hospital managers and heads of department in all critical departments.
This startling information about prolonged vacancies in key leadership positions at Tembisa Hospital was disclosed by MEC Mazibuko in a written reply to a question posed by the DA in the Gauteng Provincial Legislature (GPL).
See the reply here.
The vacant or acting posts include the Nursing Manager, Finance Manager, Risk Manager, Manager of Clinical Support and Therapeutic Services, Public Health Specialist, Heads of Department for Internal Medicine, High Care, Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Paediatrics, Psychiatry, Emergency Medicine, as well as numerous nursing management positions responsible for quality assurance, theatre, maternity and specialist services.
The MEC further claimed that “austerity measures” imposed by the GDoH are the reason the CEO has remained in an acting capacity well beyond the prescribed six-month limit.
This is just an excuse, yet consistent with the department’s chronic failure to fill critical leadership posts.
Tembisa is one of 13 hospitals currently being overseen by Acting CEOs. Pholosong Hospital has not had a CEO for five years, and Sebokeng Hospital and Mamelodi Hospital are other regional hospitals operating without permanent executive leadership.
These prolonged vacancies expose a severe leadership crisis within the department. It also exposes Premier Panyaza Lesufi’s failure to review the outdated 2006 departmental staff establishment and organogram, despite these forming the basis of departmental budgets, staffing, and annual performance plans.
This fragmented middle management is demoralising. Coupled with Premier Lesufi’s over-centralised decision-making, this creates a situation in which local hospital managers lack the authority to make operational and procurement decisions, with every decision requiring approval from the GDOH’s Head of Department.
The DA is the only party with a credible plan to ensure efficient management of Gauteng hospitals. A DA-led Gauteng government will promptly fill critical management and clinical vacancies with qualified professionals and devolve operational decision-making to hospital management to enable quicker responses to patient needs.