By Rhodé Marshall17 September 2007
Trade union federation COSATU has applied for a court interdict to stop the Health Department closing 60 beds at Groote Schuur hospital as of Monday.
The beds being closed follow the announcement by MEC for Health Pierre Uys of a R30 million decrease in the budgets of Groote Schuur and Tygerberg hospitals.
As soon as patients who are currently occupying the beds to be closed are discharged, no new patient will be admitted to those beds.
COSATU says they will meet with their lawyers. They plan to file the interdict within the next two days.
“COSATU is concerned that the attempts by government to cut public hospital expenditure will lead to a decline in services for working families,” says COSATU regional secretary Tony Ehrenreich.
“We believe the government is being intensely insensitive to poor people’s needs, thus we believe that a court interdict is the only way to make sure we restore effective public education in the Western Cape,” says Ehrenreich.
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