During October and November 2017 I laid charges with the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) against Groote Schuur Hospital and Western Cape Health Department doctors and officials relating to the treatment and death of my mother, Helen Johnson, under suspicious circumstances while under their care in 2017.
Related to this, I laid culpable homicide and other charges with the police in September 2017. In April 2018 Cape Town’s Director of Public Prosecutions declined to prosecute without really investigating (see here). And similar to the DPP with whom she irregularly had ex parte discussions about the case in November 2017, Premier Helen Zille pre-emptively exonerated head of the Western Cape Health Department Dr Beth Engelbrecht, hospital CEO Dr Bhavna Patel who had promised but then declined to investigate and others without reading my complaints or investigating, which itself is a violation of health legislation. But as far as they’re concerned, who cares, right?
The respondents to my HPCSA complaints are Drs Ahmed Al Sayari, Mikhail Botha, Marcelle Crowther, Trauma Centre head Andrew Nicol, Bhavna Patel and Beth Engelbrecht.
HPCSA's legal department said the initial process would take a while and respondents have three months to reply. But it took twice as long. By October 2018 when I had not heard from them, I wrote expressing concern at the delay. The department's Keabetswe Mokwena replied the doctors only responded in July – eight months after I laid the complaint – and the matter was only set down for the Committee of Preliminary Inquiry’s agenda in November, a year after I laid the charges.
Failure of doctors to respond within the stipulated time or at all is itself a disciplinary offense. The Health Professions Act’s Ethical Rules of Conduct for Practitioners section 20 “Defeating or obstructing the council or board in the performance of its duties” states:
“A practitioner shall at all times cooperate and comply with any lawful instruction, directive or process of the council, a board, a committee of such board or an official of council and in particular, shall be required, where so directed to (a) committee of such board or an official of council within the stipulated time frames; and (b) attend consultation at the time and place stipulated.”
Mokwena did not inform me of and offer an explanation for the problems until I enquired. She did not say why the respondents were permitted such leeway despite me objecting. Clearly, the delays benefited the accused only and are in contravention of the Act.
She said they would inform me of the outcome during December. I’ve heard nothing since. It’s now over a year since I laid the complaints.
This is déjà vu. In 2002 the HPCSA declined to investigate my complaints against then Groote Schuur orthopaedic surgeon Christopher Hobbs and unethical hospital and health department officials (they suborned his criminal conduct after becoming aware of it and secretly facilitated his leaving with a clean record without reporting or taking any action against him) stating only it was “highly sensitive” (see here). I then raised it with the HPCSA’s chairman, who reportedly was a drunk and had gotten into trouble at a conference in Europe. He later resigned or was fired.
The deputy chairwoman, a full-time professor of medicine at the University of Free State, to whom my enquiries were referred, didn’t know what she was doing and sent me nonsensical replies.
Eventually my persistent enquiries ended where it started two years before that – the registrar and legal department which hadn’t bothered to respond in the first place. By then it was too late as Hobbs had long fled the country, and DPP too had washed its hands of the case. In a case of double déjà vu, the DPP got the law wrong, and didn’t care, as with the present case. They told me he hadn’t committed an offense, which was patently false – as always, the DPP like its mother body the NPA refuses or is reluctant to prosecute politically connected individuals or anyone connected to government and bends the law to accommodate them.
This is the calibre of people in public office in South Africa – mediocre and arrogant, the two qualities that often go together (the Dunning-Kruger effect).
Already I suspected the HPCSA, as before with Hobbs and DPP, was reluctant to investigate my mother’s case due to its political sensitivity. And it’s not known for its effectiveness and expeditious prosecution of disciplinary complaints. For example, charges against doctors implicated in Life Esidimeni (connected to the ANC) are going nowhere. The minister of health once described the HPCSA as dysfunctional.
But they say they have zero tolerance for unregistered doctors which are the easiest cases to prosecute that allegedly prove to the public they’re doing something and are tough. But that’s a lie as the Hobbs case proved – he too was unregistered.
The HPCSA are violating the very laws and regulations they’re supposed to enforce – National Health Act, Health Professions Act, Constitution and Promotion of Administrative of Justice Act.
Also, their process hasn’t been transparent. They didn’t send me Al Sayari’s et al’s responses so I’m at a disadvantage – I can’t comment or rebut what they say and they will lie and dissemble to save their skin against my proven allegations.
So far the HPCSA’s proceedings in these complaints are unfair. Who guards the guardians? Like almost all the country’s regulators – I’m hard pressed to name one exception – up to the NPA, a few of which I’ve personally experienced, they’re too are inept, dysfunctional, dilatory and designed solely to protect the status quo and members’ and political interests. They’re hopeless, but what other option does the public have?
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