Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital, the largest health-care institution in the southern hemisphere, is again in the news for the wrong reasons. Yesterday we reported that the Soweto hospital now has to pay a few million rand short of R1bn in claims lodged against it for alleged medical negligence over the past four years.
The news came to light in a written answer by the department of health to questions in the Gauteng provincial legislature. The department said 50 medical negligence claims totaling R992m had been filed against the Bara maternity unit in the past four years.
We shudder to think what the total bill, which would include other sections of the iconic hospital, could come to.
This newspaper reported that half of the approximately R1bn cases were for cerebral palsy in babies, with individual claims ranging from R10m to R51m. The biggest claim was to the amount of R65m for alleged negligence in treating a pregnant woman, which resulted in a womb infection, leading to an emergency hysterectomy and heart and kidney complications requiring dialysis.
Claims for medical negligence are typical in the medical industry but claims against Chris Hani Baragwanath, which is a referral hospital for all provinces, end up i having an impact on health-care centres all over the country.
Compounding matters is that Bara’s age-old maladies are seemingly never going to be a thing of the past any time soon. In further response to the questions raised in the provincial legislature, the health department said the hospital was understaffed and lacked adequate working equipment, making the possibility of medical mishaps even more likely.
According to Jack Bloom, the DA’s health spokesperson in the province, who posed the questions in the legislature, the cooling unit for two operating theatres at Bara, was broken for six days last month. He said patients had to be operated on in high temperatures, which increased the risk of infection. He listed other cases of malfunctioning equipment.
There you have it, many more claims may lie in waiting.
The money that will be lost settling parts of the R1bn claims could have been put to better use improving the hospital in many other respects. Yes, the bill will be settled by the department but there is no mistaking that such settlements will not leave public hospitals such as Bara in a healthier state.
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