No money to do basic tasks – Dr Nicolas Crisp on Health Department
Acting director-general at the Department of Health, Dr Nicolas Crisp, has described his return to public service as a sobering experience.
Crisp was part of a panel discussion on reforming the country's health system on Monday.
He said there is not enough money to do many of the basic tasks required of the department.
" There are massive constrains, we are under pressure from media and other parties by government promising to fix certain things. The pressure is to increase the number of nurses and doctors, but the buget is getting less and unions are demanding higher wages. In fact, more and more posts are being frozen every year so the public sector has no chance at all of improving and increasing itself to the extent that people in public think it's possible."
Crisp also rubbished claims that new money had been provided by government for the purchasing of Covid-19 vaccines.
"This illusion that is created that there is new money that is provided for Covid-19 vaccine is nonsense. It is done by what you call reprioritisation, in other words crumbing out money from the budget to pay for Covid vaccine, R2 billion this year it is a case in point, and the previous vaccines.
“The national Health Department has now signed $480 million loan, at a very cheap rate with the World Bank. To make it possible to do other programmes in government. We have already spent that money a long time ago, and now we have to account for the ongoing vaccination program which has lost a lot of momentum."
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