The Honourable Member is making sweeping statements and wild claims. We request that you be more specific to assist the department to answer the question. If the Honourable Member has data to illustrate the allegations of any ‘upsurge’ he should provide the details to the department. Honourable Member must also share with us the data of the deaths she is referring to.
- The departments of health strives by all means to fill all vacant posts that are funded.
- There are ongoing engagements with National Treasury to secure budget assistance to address the unemloyment of Health Care Professionals. Thus far, 345 medical officer posts have been made available to recruit post-community service junior doctors. These have been advertised and the process is at different levels of recruitment.
- Despite austerity measures the department can confirm that a total of 1 667 nurses in various categories were employed during the period October 2024 to January 2025. This was further followed by a request to National Treasury for additional funding of Cost of Employment needs which includes the post-community service nursing appointments.
- The department is applying the Ideal Health Facility Framework to ensure that health facilities meet and maintain the standards expected of the different categories of health establishments. The department continues to pay attention to refurbishment and maintenance of aging infrastructure. Hence the emphasis on infrastructure update by President Ramaphosa during the 2025 State of the Nation Address, where he stated that that “a number of hospitals are under construction or undergoing revitalisation and other projects are at various stages of design and development.”
END.
