Chairperson, I hereby give notice that on the next sitting day of the Council I shall move:
That the Council -
1) notes with utmost dismay the contemptuous statement and misguided political utterances made by the DA's Western Cape MEC for health, Mr Theuns Botha, that he will not allow the national government to take control of hospitals in the Western Cape should the government adopt policy in that regard;
2) further notes Mr Botha's utterances are driven by nothing else than an attempt to mislead the people of the Western Cape and cover up the massive challenges that have been identified in public hospitals in the Western Cape, particularly the following:
a) a three-year-old boy died on his grandmother's back three years ago after being turned away by three public health centres in Cape Town;
b) the R1 million independent complaints commission announced by Mr Botha in December 2010 has since been disbanded;
c) elderly people, some of whom can hardly manage to walk, must queue for hours on the pavement in the open and outside the fence of the clinic or day hospitals in Athlone in the City of Cape Town, while the DA is doing nothing to care for these desperate and destitute people; and
d) hospitals are being funded by the national government; and
3) condemns Mr Botha's cheap misguided political ploy and calls on the national government not to deviate from its course to eradicate the injustices of the past practised by the likes of Mr Botha and the DA and their predecessors and to continue without fear or favour to seek to provide better health services and a better life and future for all South Africans in general.