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'It is health politics'
15/08/2007 11:59 - (SA)
Johannesburg - Cecilia Makiwane Hospital superintendent Dr Nokuzola Ntshona said on Wednesday her suspension was caused by health politics.
Ntshona was suspended on Monday by Luvuyo Mosana, the chief executive of the East London Hospital Complex which includes Frere and Cecilia Makiwane Hospitals.
She told Sapa on Tuesday it was because she spoke to the media about reports of a health crisis at Frere Hospital.
"It is health politics. The reason I was suspended is a trivial one," Ntshona said on an interview with SAfm.
She denied speaking to the media saying she discovered during a recent public servants' strike that her job did not permit it.
Didn't talk to newspaper
She said a journalist had been present during a recent health portfolio committee visit, but had arrived with the group.
She told Sapa on Tuesday, "I never invited those journalists who reported on my presentation, they came with the committee."
When pressed by SAfm she said a photographer was at her house on Friday to "write the story of my life" which, she said, extended beyond the hospital.
She had refused to talk to the Daily Dispatch for their first two articles on conditions at Frere Hospital and they had not consulted her during their expos.
The newspaper reported that 2 000 babies were stillborn at the hospital's maternity ward over the past 14 years and that 43 newborn babies had died in July.
She apologised for using an official letterhead to write to President Thabo Mbeki about conditions at the hospital.
The Sunday Times reported that Mosana found this a breach of protocol in that she had not approached her immediate superiors first.
However, she said she had written to Mbeki as a regular South African citizen, which she said was everybody's right.
She acknowledged that she had been convicted of fraud in the US, but said a nurse and the nurse's two sons had forged her signature.
Unannounced visit
The matter had become public when the media was informed of it during a family fight.
She told the Health Professions Council of SA about it, was suspended from the council then reinstated.
"I faced my problems in the US," she said.
She did not know that equipment had been removed from other hospitals and taken to Frere Hospital ahead of a visit by Heath Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang.
Following the reports in the Daily Dispatch in July, former deputy health minister Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge had visited the hospital unannounced and declared there was a national emergency.
The letter Ntshona wrote to Mbeki supported Madlala-Routledge's finding and the letter was subsequently leaked to the Daily Dispatch.
The visit by Tshabalala-Msimang led to an acknowledgement that there was a shortage of some equipment and staff, but said the report of an emergency was based on untruths.
Madlala-Routledge was fired last week for making the unannounced visit to the hospital as well as an unauthorised trip to Spain.
Ntshona said she would receive the charges against her next week.
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