Abstract:

The Department of Health is in a dire state and its public hospitals have failed to meet its constitutional obligation to render basic medical service, endangering patients lives. The South African National government had declared the Limpopo Provincial Government bankrupt and placed the province under constitutional administration for poor governance and financial mismanagement. Despite national intervention, health care at Limpopo’s dysfunctional hospitals has deteriorated and patients with life threatening disease, medical emergency and chronic illnesses are not being treated. Nothwtistanding, national intervention, allegations of political impotence, lack of managerial ability, maladministration, tender irregularities and corruption continue to abound and healthcare is used as a pawn within the constitutional space which has spawned political malfeasance and criminality. The paper examines the state of the Limpopo’s public hospitals using granularity  analysis to investigate the stasis of governance using managerial ineptitude, constitutional administration strictures and the internecine political cleavage of the ruling party in the province as descriptors.