The Eastern Cape Health Department has said it is making extraordinary interventions to limit the R30bn contingent liability it faces as a result of a tidal wave of negligence claims.

A Daily Dispatch report notes the AGs office told Parliament last week the Eastern Cape was one of eight provinces that had not yet fully implemented a mandatory case management system designed to help provincial Health Departments defend themselves against financially devastating negligence claims.

But provincial health spokesperson Mkhululi Ndamase said the department was taking several special measures to address the decades-old medical negligence payout crisis.

Ndamase believes the department’s multi-pronged approach will stop it being overwhelmed by multimillion-rand court-ordered negligence payouts.

The department’s strategy includes preventing future cases through better and safer healthcare, deploying a tactical and co-ordinated legal defence strategy with medicolegal cases – some of which are fraudulent – and strengthening the chaotic administration of medico-legal matters.

It will require ambitious investment in ‘clinical, administrative and forensic’ interventions, as well as a sustained and serious bid to generally improve healthcare in the province.

Ndamase said the provincial government had already established a specialised litigation unit under the Office of the Premier and procured an additional legal panel to ‘supplement’ the State Attorney’s Office to address the deluge of negligence claims.

‘This has strengthened our capability to mount a co-ordinated legal defence strategy.’

Full Daily Dispatch report