NATIONAL ASSEMBLY
FOR WRITTEN REPLY
QUESTION NO. 1761
DATE OF PUBLICATION IN INTERNAL QUESTION PAPER: 01 July 2011
(INTERNAL QUESTION PAPER NO. 19)
Mr T D Lee (DA) to ask the Minister of Health:
(1) Whether, with regard to his reply to question 448 on 15 March 2011,
he has taken any steps to ensure that all provinces adhere to standard
waiting times; if not, why not; if so, what steps;
(2) whether any costing of the standard waiting times was conducted by
his department and the subsequent funding given to provinces; if not,
why not; if so, (a) what was the cost for each province and (b) when
was the costing done?
NW1988E
REPLY:
1) Provinces are well aware of the standard waiting times required and
are attempting to meet these standards. The National Department of
Health has reinforced the need to address backlogs with provinces. The
two constraints to achieving these times are funds (for which there
are many competing priorities) and availability of trained personnel.
Provinces have endeavoured to increase budgets wherever possible and
to fill vacant posts. The table below illustrates the costs of
backlogs previously reported to Parliament, current budgets and the
budget from the previous year for comparison. This illustrates that
many provinces have increased their budgets to assist with meeting
standard waiting times.
2) (a) Yes, costing of the standard waiting times for addressing
backlogs was calculated and reported to Parliament in our
response to Question 448. Many Provinces have made additional
funding available in the current financial year as seen in the
following table:
|Province |Cost implications|Budget 2010/11 |Available budget |
| |of backlog |R000 |2011/12 for old and|
| |R000 | |new cases R000 |
|Eastern Cape |12 200 |13 900 |14 323 |
|Free State |12 700 |7 311 |8 973 |
|Gauteng |3 400 |15 000 |29 771 |
|KwaZulu/Natal |11 900 |29 094 |26 900 |
|Limpopo |Meeting standard |13 800 |10 800 |
| |waiting times | | |
|Mpumalanga |3 430 |8 700 |7 500 |
|North West |20 750 |14 340 |14 800 |
|Northern Cape |810 |3 300 |3 800 |
|Western Cape |4 000 |31 847 |35 881 |
(b) Costing was done at the beginning of 2011.
END.