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Johannesburg - Public servants' generous increases following the 2007 public service strike are causing massive deficits in provincial health departments.
The 2007 public service strike, the biggest in the country's history, was settled after unions gained a say in the application of the Occupational Specific Dispensation (OSD), a new remuneration system the Mbeki government wanted to introduce to retain scarce skills in the public service, as well as attract them.
In a report released on Tuesday, the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) and the Eastern Cape Public Service Accountability Monitor (PSAM) declare it is clear the OSD was applied without budgeting and planning, and was now destabilising the country's healthcare system.
In the Free State it has led to medicine budgets being slashed to the extent that about a quarter of HIV-positive patients qualifying for antiretroviral treatment are dying while waiting for their medicines, states the report.
At a recent conference on the provision of these Aids drugs in the Free State, it came to light that 60% of the budget for this programme was now being spent on staff costs.
The budgeting process for the health provision programme in the Free State now starts with the personnel budget, before provision is made for other expenditure, including antiretroviral medication, said TAC and PSAM in a joint statement on Tuesday.
Why were salaries being paid to people so that they could tell patients that there was no medicine for them, asked Sello Mokhalipi, chairperson of the Free State HIV and Aids Coalition at the conference.
He pointed out that rural clinics and even district hospitals were hamstrung by shortages. Not even Panado was available. Diabetics were being forced to buy their own medicines. What would happen to those who couldn't afford it?
In the Eastern Cape the MEC announced that the province would overspend its health budget by R1.6bn, as a consequence of higher-than-budgeted-for staff costs.
In the 2009/10 financial year the R6.23bn budget would be exceeded by 21%. The 2010/11 staffing budget was R1.6bn or 26% up, to R7.92bn.
The proportion of the health budget spent on salaries has therefore climbed from 54% to 60%.
Critical allocations such as goods and services, including drugs and laboratory services, have been cut by R312m or 8%, from R3.8bn to R3.48bn for 2011/12, the non-governmental organisations point out.
If inflation is taken into account, the cuts are closer to 13%.
- Sake24.com
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