Themba Sepotokele devotes a whole column to how I was supposedly outsmarted by Gauteng health spokesperson Motaletale Modiba (“Bloom checkmated by alert health spokesperson”, April 27).
The incident arose when I said hospital security costs have ballooned while delivering poor value for money.
I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t question why security costs at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital have soared to R77-million a year –`up from R22-million a decade ago.
At Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Hospital, security now costs R72-million annually, up from R35-million three years ago.
Modiba got a right of reply to my interview on Power FM, but it’s hard to spin the numbers when the facts are against you.
Being a spokesperson for a department mired in waste, inefficiency, and corruption is challenging.
Imagine having to defend the cover-up of corrupt contracts at Tembisa Hospital – the ones whistle-blower Babita Deokaran was murdered for exposing.
What about the looted Covid funds while people were dying, or the recent court ruling declaring the department’s failure to treat cancer patients both unlawful and unconstitutional?
As they say, it’s like putting lipstick on a pig.
I’ve long been used to taking flack for standing my ground. In the days when people were dying because of the denial that HIV causes Aids, I pushed for ARVs to be prescribed to rape victims and HIV-positive pregnant women.
When I called for former health MEC Qedani Mahlangu to resign after she admitted, under my questioning, that Life Esidimeni patients had died, I was smeared as racist and sexist.
It took nearly five months of evasion by the department before Mahlangu finally left after the devastating health ombudsman’s report revealed that 144 mental health patients had died in the illegal NGOs to which they had been sent.
Sepotokele gives a backhanded compliment to my frequent hospital visits, which highlight Helen Suzman’s principle of “go see for yourself”.
She also famously replied to a National Party minister who accused her of asking questions just to embarrass South Africa overseas: “It is not my questions that embarrass South Africa – it is your answers.”
What Sepotokele and Modiba conveniently ignore is that public money is siphoned off while patients suffer in overcrowded, understaffed, and sometimes dangerous hospitals. Security firms with dubious links flourish, but doctors are not paid overtime and life-saving equipment lies broken for months.
Meanwhile, critical infrastructure – such as operating theatres, neonatal wards, and oncology units – frequently run on borrowed time, with maintenance delayed and procurement tied up in red tape. The system fails the very people it’s meant to serve, while bloated contracts continue unchallenged.
In many cases, hospitals are forced to rely on outdated equipment and temporary staffing just to keep basic services running. Reports of patients sleeping on floors or waiting months for operations are not isolated – they reflect a pattern of neglect.
When I raise these issues, it’s not for political point-scoring – it’s because ordinary people are paying the price for this mismanagement with their lives.
The same health department that spends tens of millions on questionable security contracts often pleads poverty when it comes to essential medical staff or fixing vital machines.
Who really benefits when accountability is deflected, and whistle-blowers are silenced?
Our democracy benefits from robust questioning, and the public can make up their own minds as to who is telling the truth.
I am surprised that Sepotokele insults the media by accusing me of using “gullible soundbite-chasing journalists as useful idiots”.
This is after he has written an entire book on Being a Spokesperson.
Perhaps he should add a chapter on what spokespeople should do when they have an ethical duty to stop playing hired gun for the indefensible – and start standing with those who tell the truth, however uncomfortable it may be.
- Bloom, MPL, DA Gauteng shadow health MEC
