Tembisa Hospital CEO and senior officials must face disciplinary action over gross negligence, tribunal rules

Senior officials at the Tembisa Tertiary Hospital, including its former CEO Dr Lekopane Mogaladi, must be disciplined for their roles in the death of a patient, an independent ad hoc tribunal has ruled.

Shonisani Lethole was admitted to Tembisa Hospital on 23 June 2020 with Covid. He had chest pains, was weak and battling to breathe. He was intubated on 27 June. He died two days later.

But before he died, Lethole took to Twitter on 25 June to describe the unbearable and uncaring conditions he was experiencing. He said he had not eaten for two days.

An Ombud investigation was prompted by a complaint by the Minister of Health.

Health Ombud Prof Malegapuru Makgoba in January last year found that Lethole had been denied food for “100 hours and 54 minutes” and that medical staff had been grossly negligent. He recommended that 18 staff members, including doctors and nurses, should face disciplinary action.

Mogaladi was suspended almost immediately afterwards.

An appeal tribunal, set up in terms of the National Health Act, consisting of three members — two doctors, Prof Rudo Mathivha and Prof Ebrahim Variava, and retired Constitutional Court Judge Bess Nkabinde — considered appeals by Mogaladi and Dr Makhosazane Ngobese, head of the Covid unit at the time, against the Ombud’s findings and recommendations.

Mogaladi and Ngobese raised several grounds of appeal, including that there was no valid complaint, that the Ombud had acted beyond his mandate and that his findings were not supported by the evidence.

The tribunal returned two decisions. Judge Nkabinde said she would have upheld the appeal in its entirety. But the majority, Professors Mathivha and Variava, while setting aside some of the Ombud’s recommendations, said Mogaladi and Ngobese should still be disciplined.