Latest news with #Msimang
IOL News
30-04-2025
- Health
- IOL News
KZN Health resolves service provider payment delays after food supply issues at hospitals
The KZN Department of Health says service providers are being paid after a National Treasury system transition affected payments last week. The payment delays impacted food supply to some KZN hospitals. Picture: Pixabay Image: Pixabay The KwaZulu-Natal Department of Health says it has resumed payments to service providers following a delay caused by a system transition, an issue that contributed to food supply issues at some healthcare facilities. Acting Head of Department (HOD) Penny Msimang said in a recent radio interview delays occurred after the National Treasury implemented a change to the Basic Accounting System (BAS), which the department uses to process payments. 'There was a transition from the system that we use to pay service providers called Basic Accounting System (BAS). National Treasury had a transition from Version 5 to Version 6 of BAS. So during that process, we were not able to process the payments of some service providers." 'However, that has been sorted, and as of last week, we are making those payments,' said Msimang. But the Democratic Alliance (DA) has slammed the department for what it calls a preventable crisis, saying the department had enough time to plan for the transition and should have communicated with service providers to avoid disruptions to essential services. DA KZN spokesperson on health Dr Imran Keeka said: 'This matter was foreseen and raised long before it became a crisis. The Department knew about the transition to BAS Version 6. Treasury communicated about it, and planning should have been done accordingly.' He said the non-payment of service providers led to hospitals being unable to provide adequate food, including at Northdale and Vryheid hospitals. 'People's lives depend on hospitals running properly, including food provision. This matter should have been better managed,' said Keeka. The incident at Northdale comes after a power outage at the hospital last week resulted in hospital staff resorting to cooking food on an open fire outside. A video of the incident circulated on social media. The department said that disciplinary action would be taken against the staff as cooking outside on an open fire was against regulations. The Umkhonto Wesizwe (MK) Party has since strongly condemned Health MEC Nomagugu Simelane's handling of this matter, accusing the department of shifting blame to workers instead of addressing infrastructure failures and the lack of contingency planning. 'The MK Caucus views their actions not as misconduct, but as heroic intervention at a time when the Department's systems had collapsed,' said MK Caucus Whip Siphiwe Mbatha Moyo. 'We strongly reject the scapegoating of workers while leadership hides behind bureaucratic language.' The MKP said it was 'completely unrealistic and inhumane to expect kitchen staff, in the middle of a blackout crisis, to coordinate sourcing food from other hospitals without clear operational support,' and demanded that disciplinary measures against the staff be withdrawn. It also called for a full forensic investigation into the state of hospital infrastructure and emergency response systems. Responding to the incident, Msimang confirmed that there had been a power outage in the area, and that although the hospital has three generators, one of them which powered the kitchen, failed during the blackout. She added that the generator was off for about 10 hours and only affected a section of the hospital. 'The one generator that stopped working was supplying power to the kitchen. As that generator was not working, plans were made to have the meals prepared at a nearby hospital in Richmond, but there was miscommunication between the CEO and the person responsible for the kitchen, who saw that time was running and decided to start an open fire and cook outside.' 'Although they were trying to help, we do not commend this act as the Department of Health because we have procedures to follow in such instances. There were also safety concerns because someone might get burnt and hygiene, as the food may be affected.' THE MERCURY
Mail & Guardian
22-04-2025
- Health
- Mail & Guardian
Fighting for funds: A new era of HIV activism
The Health and Human Rights Oral History Project's video testimonies that capture three decades of health activism from around the world, might provide a blueprint for the next wave of HIV activism. (Bhekisisa) 'So the US funding cuts happened and I was looking for the noise! I was asking the other day, 'Where are my people, why aren't they shouting?'' says Sisonke Msimang, a South African writer and political scientist. Msimang was a vocal critic of the Aids denialism of the Mbeki era, supporting the health advocacy organisation Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) in what became a She is also one of 29 health rights activists featured in the [WATCH] LAUNCH OF THE ORAL HISTORY PROJECT In South Africa, more than half of HIV and TB projects funded by the US government's Aids fund, Pepfar, The health department commissioned a modelling study from Wits University's The preprint of the study's results will be published this week. 'We need to see urgency from the government to reverse this. We're not seeing that,' warns Sasha Stevenson, who heads up the social justice organisation Section27. The cost to contain those numbers? R2.82 billion. Activists say getting the government to find the money might require a back-to-basics approach to HIV advocacy. 'I was thinking it's time for noise again,' says Msimang, who now lives in Perth, Australia. 'We must meet this moment, pushing for full funding of health by our own government.' Looking back to move forward The series of video testimonies that capture three decades of health activism from around the world might provide a blueprint for the next wave of activism. The interviews are housed by the 'We saw that the projects represented so much that needed to be preserved, to be able to learn from and to be inspired,' Jonathan Cohen, director of policy engagement at the Global Health Institute, told Bhekisisa . Activism in South Africa takes prominent space in the archive, with testimonies from Grants can be ended, speakers at the oral history project's Making history Stevenson said the archive gives unique insights into the back stories of the many layers of activism that eventually bring about change. In the 'essential medicines' case in the late 1990s and early 2000s, public protests drew attention to the need for HIV treatment around the world. In South Africa, those protests took on the form of scientists, activists, lawyers and the news media coming together That activism resulted in Twenty years later, the Life Esidimeni It was largely due to the activism of organisations such as Section27 and the In her But only if journalists, activists and researchers tap into it. That point, says Noor Nieftagodien, head of the history workshop at Wits University, is 'amplified by the current circumstances of Trumpism, where … there is an urgent need for more of this kind of human rights activism'. The universal lesson from the archive, he says, is that results come from organising and mobilising people around a cause. Holding the state accountable 'In 20 years, we'll look back to what happened in 2025 and people will want to know a fuller story about how people responded,' says Fatima Hassan, the founder and director of the She says the oral histories give courage, but in some ways activism today is more complicated. In South Africa, activists now have to deal with a government of national unity (GNU), instead of a single party with one ideology. The unity government is fragile, and Hassan says the Health Justice Initiative and other civil society organisations So far, the health department says it has commissioned the modelling study previously mentioned, and The department's deputy director general for the country's National Health Insurance scheme, who led the calculations, told Bhekisisa the department is in the process of applying for emergency funding from the treasury, via section 16 of the Public Finance Management Act, on 15 April. But Hassan says the slow pace at which the department has been moving to get to this point is frustrating. She says the business community should also have stepped forward by now to acknowledge the scale of the crisis. 'History will judge those with money and resources that didn't come forward and say they're trying to mitigate the impact.' But, she argues, some of the 'noise' of activism was initially stifled; people speaking for organisations affected by cuts wouldn't go public — or did so anonymously — so as not to poke the bear (US President Donald Trump) and lose their contract. Other things have changed, too. Mark Heywood, a founding member of the TAC, now serving on its board, says activism is debased because activists get sucked into policy processes. For example, he says, the For Cohen, the close working relationship between activists and government in South Africa is a sign of activist success — it usually means that governments have started fulfilling their health obligations and need civil society to help them. Back to basics? The funding crisis is a reminder that the need to hold the state accountable never ends, activists say. Msimang says working with the state is both essential and seductive. 'Where activists find themselves now is [that] we became friends with government, helping to expand the capacity of the state to reach out to communities.' She says the shutdown of the US Agency for International Development, USAid, through which Mluleki Zazini, the director of the 'I think we need to go back to the streets so that we can voice our needs,' says Zazini, who also chairs the civil society forum within Sanac. 'We criticise them in boardrooms … maybe they've forgotten that we used to mobilise people to get action.' Bhekisisa 's Mia Malan was the moderator for the online This story was produced by the . Sign up for the .
