ANA reports that a nursing agency has stopped providing nurses to the Rahima Moosa Mother and Child Hospital in west Johannesburg because it is owed over R6 million by the Gauteng health department.  

This was revealed in the Gauteng Legislature in a written reply by MEC for Health, Gwen Ramokgopa, to a question by the DA’s Jack Bloom.  Ramokgopa indicated that three nursing agencies were being used by the hospital at the beginning of this year, but they stopped services in September because they had not been paid by her department.  Two of the agencies were paid in full on 31 October, but the the Nursing Services of SA agency was only paid R4.9 million and is still owed R6,173,045.  Ramokgopa told the legislature that "amounts are loaded for payment", but due to cash allocation constraints the amounts owing remained unpaid.  Bloom warned that the withdrawal of agency nurses has led to staff burnout at the hospital.  He claimed that two wards had been closed and the three operating theatres had been "cut down to one".

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