For the second time this year, the Gauteng provincial government announced that it would take Independent Media to court for exposing the unacceptable conditions that patients were exposed to at some of its hospitals.
In its statement, the government said it wanted to protect the integrity of all government officials as well as that of public institutions. The government, however, did not mention a single word about protecting patients.
Independent Media chairperson Dr Iqbal Survé said that alone demonstrated that they do not care about the well-being of their patients. “Clearly their priority is their image – public relations. If they cared about patients, they would have been trying to do something about what we have exposed.”
The statement also does not indicate if the government would consider investigating the matter.
“You really must be the most uncaring government in the world, when you are being told about the suffering of your citizens at your hospitals and your first instinct is not to do something about that. Instead, they say they are taking us to court as a threat to stop us from speaking up when we discover and report wrongdoing by government institutions. Well, bring it on because that won’t work with Independent Media. We stand by our exposé,” said Survé.
Independent Media’s investigations unit has had sight of a report outlining gross medical negligence at Tembisa Provincial Tertiary Hospital that resulted in the death of a patient, which could have been avoided.
The report stated that all the different reports corroborated and strengthened the findings of the Health Ombud and investigator that the patient’s care was not only substandard but was also negligent.
While both the Health Ombud and investigator reported several findings of systems-related nature and deficiencies, these were not sufficient to explain the extent and degree of substandard and negligent care provided.
Pretoria News