The Office of Health Standards Compliance had seen a surge in complaints to its consumer hotline in the wake of the Life Esidimeni tragedy, it told Parliament on Wednesday. The statutory body is responsible for safeguarding standards at health facilities. It inspects hospitals and clinics and started a call centre in November 2016 for the public to lodge complaints.
CEO Siphiwe Mndaweni, appointed in November, said the publicity around the Life Esidimeni scandal had raised the visibility of the office and the health ombudsman and "drastically increased" the number of complaints received by the agency.
"We have seen an increase in the volume and scope [of complaints], which signals a potential increase in litigation," she told the portfolio committee on health during a briefing on the office’s performance plan.
The office had received 730 complaints about public and private sector establishments between November 2016 to the end of March 2017. It now received an average of 300 complaints a month.
The chief financial officer at the office, Julius Mapatha, said the institution had faced legal costs of about R3.5m for the Life Esidimeni matter.
At least 144 state mental patients are known to have died in the tragedy, which saw almost 2,000 state psychiatric patients transferred from private healthcare facilities to unlicensed and ill-equipped non-governmental organisations.
Mndaweni said the office was set to begin inspecting private healthcare facilities for the first time following the promulgation of norms and standards for public and private healthcare facilities in February. The norms and standards will come into effect in February 2019.
Work was under way to craft detailed guidelines to accompany these regulations, she told Business Day.
kahnt@businesslive.co.za
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