Question NW4024 to the Minister of Health
04 December 2015 - NW4024
Waters, Mr M to ask the Minister of Health
(1)Why, with regard to the reply by the Member of the Executive Council of Health in Gauteng (details furnished), was a total of R53 724 384,15 million spent on renovating the Sizwe Tropical Disease Hospital in recent years while, with reference to his reply to question 2600 on 5 August 2015, the specified hospital will now be relocated to a site opposite Edenvale Hospital; (2) whether he has considered that the money spent on the specified hospital which is to be relocated can be found to be wasteful and fruitless expenditure; if not, why not; if so, what steps does he intend taking in this regard?
Reply:
1. The ongoing maintenance and renovations of Sizwe Hospital was essential to comply with the Occupational Health and Safety legislative requirements, the National Core Standards of the Office of Health Standards Compliance as well as Quality Improvement Standards.
At any rate the Department of Health never had it in mind that the Hospital should be relocated. It is another government department which took that decision and promised that the Company that needs that space will relocate at their own expenses, meaning that whatever has been spent cannot be lost.
2. How so? The relocation is done at the expense of whoever needs to take over that space. The Department of Health or the government is going to pay nothing.
END.