WARNING: This is Version 1 of my old archive, so Photos will NOT work and many links will NOT work. But you can find articles by searching on the Titles. There is a lot of information in this archive. Use the SEARCH BAR at the top right. Prior to December 2012; I was a pro-Christian type of Conservative. I was unaware of the mass of Jewish lies in history, especially the lies regarding WW2 and Hitler. So in here you will find pro-Jewish and pro-Israel material. I was definitely WRONG about the Boeremag and Janusz Walus. They were for real.
Original Post Date: 2007-08-13 Time: 00:00:00 Posted By: Jan
By Fiona Forde
Hot on the heels of an investigation that raises grave concerns about extraordinarily high infant mortality rates at the East London Hospital Complex, it now transpires that its deputy manager, who was a flower girl at Madiba’s wedding in her day, is a convicted fraudster who has served time in a US prison.
Media reports on Saturday revealed that Dr Nokuzola Ntshona was convicted in 1996 by a New York court for fraudulent health care claims in the early 1990s.
She was found guilty of conspiring to defraud the US Department of Health to the tune of almost
R3-million, for which she served a 0-month prison sentence, the Saturday Dispatch reported.
When contacted by Weekend Argus, Ntshona confirmed the allegations were true.
Ntshona studied medicine at the Howard University in Washington DC and later specialised in obstetrics and gynaecology in Brooklyn, New York. She returned to South Africa in 2002 after a 31-year stint abroad.
Upon her return she worked as a senior lecturer at the Mthatha General Hospital, before taking up employment at the Polokwane Hospital in Limpopo as an obstetrician.
Her days at Polokwane were short-lived, however, and 15 months into her employment she was fired. “We just didn’t see eye to eye,” she claims. “You know, I think I will always have difficulty holding down a job in South Africa because I am such an outspoken person.”
She was erased from the register of the Health Professions Council of South Africa on the first occasion because she failed to pay her fees. Reasons for the second erasure couldn’t be confirmed. According to a spokesperson of the HPCSA, her reinstatement was conditional on the fact that she work under supervision.
Ntshona was employed by the East London hospital in mid-May and appointed to the position of superintendent of the Cecilia Makiwane Hospital and deputy manager of the ELHC, which also includes Frere hospital.
Although the CEO of the complex, Yuyo Mosana, and Ntshona’s immediate boss, Dr Pandey, claim to be unaware of her criminal past, the 55-year-old medic told Weekend Argus she did not withhold any information during her application, “and answered yes to the question which asked if I had a criminal record”.
The two hospitals fell into disrepute last month when a media investigation exposed high infant mortality rates and questionable standards.
The axed deputy health minister, Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge, weighed in behind the claims, calling the situation at “national emergency”.
When Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang countered the claims, Ntshona decided to take matters into her own hands, and wrote directly to President Thabo Mbeki, asking him to intervene in the crisis.
For that, she was to be subjected to a disciplinary hearing. But the medic could see nothing untoward in what she had done. “He’s a cousin of mine. I write to him regularly,” she retorted.
Despite the pending disciplinary hearing, she continued last week to speak out about the crisis.
In the three months since she joined the 900-plus bed hospital, which sits on the edge of the sprawling Mdantsane township, the doctor claims to have encountered sub-standard conditions and said she had been forced to work with acute staff shortages.
“It’s shocking,” she said in an interview on Friday, during which she spoke candidly about the conditions, seemingly unafraid of drawing attention to herself.
“We continue to deliver babies and perform surgery throughout the night, through the weekend. You’re supposed to clean up after every use and every procedure. And who’s there to clean up at Cecilia Makiwane? Nobody.”
That the recent exposé of conditions at Frere focused largely on conditions in the maternity unit should not imply that other units of either of the two hospitals are scandal free, she was quick to warn.
Cecilia Makiwane was built in 1975, “but frankly, I thought it had been built in 1939, because of the condition it’s in. It looks like a war zone,” the doctor said.
Little did she know about the warpath she was paving that she now has to walk.