McCord faces management ‘clean-out’

Colleen Dardagan

KwaZulu-Natal Health officials would “cleanout” the top management at McCord Hospital if they were to buy out the historic Overport facility because they earned too much.

Desmond Motha, a spokesman for the provincial Health Department, confirmed a proposal which, he said, would not include the top management.

“They won’t tell us what they are earning, but we can’t have people earning so much. They will all have to go,” he said.

Motha said if the buy-out went ahead, patients would receive free health care and services would be extended.

The department had offered to take over the staff and the building, but would not take on any debt owed by the institution, he said.

While the hospital management would not go on record, because of a joint agreement with the department not to speak to the media, it said the managers at the hospital had compared their packages with those of the provincial department and found “they earn less than our counterparts” in the Health Department.

“We have also never hidden how much we earn; it’s open for anyone to see,” they said.

Yesterday the McCord Hospital board had yet to respond to the department’s offer, made public in The Mercury’s sister paper, the Daily News, saying the media announcement had taken it by surprise.

Government officials have promised to make a joint announcement today.

The not-for-profit hospital announced its imminent closure two weeks ago after it failed to get confirmation from the department on funding for the next financial year. It found itself in difficulty last year when funding from the US was withdrawn.

At a briefing last week the department threatened to ask for part of a R70-million grant awarded to the hospital last year for training and healthcare services to be returned, saying it had not received services it had been promised after the Sinikithemba HIV/Aids clinic at the hospital had closed.

The hospital has also been approached by equity partners wishing to convert it to a private hospital.

Buy-out

Now, with the offer from the government to buy it out, McCord’s management has said it wants the facility to remain a “middle” option offering affordable health care for which patients pay.

The department’s offer was reportedly made when it met the McCord board and management on Friday.

Motha said Premier Zweli Mkhize, who had qualified as a doctor at McCord, was briefed about the proposal yesterday.

Mkhize and Dhlomo attended the renaming of the R1.1 billion revamped King George V Hospital in Springfield yesterday. It was given the name of King Dinuzulu.

The function also included the opening of two new facilities at the hospital, a multi-drug-resistant TB unit, and a TB spinal and thoracic unit. The two new buildings were named after the late anti-apartheid activist Fatima Meer and Dr David Landau who were lauded for their work in medicine and for their resistance to apartheid.

King Goodwill Zwelithini accepted the name change, calling his ancestor the greatest leader of all time.

King Dinuzulu kaCetshwayo, who ascended to the Zulu throne in 1884, when he was 16, was charged and jailed twice by the British colonial government for treason.

After being released from prison he was exiled to the farm Uitkyk in Mpumalanga where he died in 1913. 8 P10