JOHANNESBURG, Gauteng — Professor Adam Mahomed, Head of Internal Medicine at Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital, has announced his decision to leave his post, citing entrenched corruption, bureaucratic paralysis, and a lack of accountability that he says is crippling patient care.
In a candid interview, Prof. Mahomed described a healthcare system in crisis, where infighting between the Gauteng Department of Health and the Department of Infrastructure has resulted in prolonged delays to repair sections of the hospital damaged by fire during the COVID-19 pandemic. His comments follow a recent Public Protector’s report that confirmed maladministration and departmental blame-shifting as key factors in the facility’s ongoing operational failures.
“The Public Protector’s report was an indictment of what we all thought: that we are being played on a chessboard between a department of health and department of infrastructure,” Prof. Mahomed stated. “One blaming the other. But the end result was that staff, nurses, doctors, cleaners, patients were bearing the brunt of this.”
While the report covered events up to 2024, Prof. Mahomed emphasized that conditions have not improved into 2025 and 2026. Critical wards remain unrepaired, equipment deliveries are delayed, and essential staffing posts stay vacant for six months to a year. Daily maintenance, separate from fire damage repairs, continues to falter due to inter-departmental disputes with “no real ownership or responsibility being taken.”
The professor highlighted excessive bureaucracy as a major obstacle. “There’s so much red tape. There’s so much paperwork. You don’t know whether you’re coming or going. You don’t get clear answers. There’s no clear direction in our hospital,” he said. He noted that the hospital’s CEO position remains filled by an acting appointee, which he argues affects decisive leadership.
Prof. Mahomed pointed to successful public-private partnerships as evidence that progress is possible. He cited an 80 million rand project to restore hospital stores, completed efficiently and without corruption by external institutions. “It’s not that it’s impossible. It’s just we need the proper mindset to say our focus is the patients,” he asserted.
He alleged that corruption permeates procurement, from infrastructure contracts to basic supplies. “Why are we paying contractors exorbitant prices?… If you’re paying 27 rand, 30 rand for a loaf of bread that costs 15 rand, there’s something wrong,” he said, adding that medication is purchased at premium prices without delivering premium quality. He challenged officials to experience the procurement process firsthand, describing a labyrinth of paperwork and approvals that can delay vital equipment orders by up to a year.
The issues, he stressed, are not isolated to Charlotte Maxeke. Baragwanath, Helen Joseph, and Rahima Moosa hospitals face similar infrastructure and staffing pressures. Theft of materials like copper pipes continues with no reported prosecutions, and the system has failed to keep pace with Gauteng’s growing patient population.
Prof. Mahomed expressed profound concern over the broader national context, noting that thousands of doctors and nurses remain unemployed while the public healthcare system deteriorates. “The system is not even fractured. It’s broken,” he declared. He called for leadership “from the front,” suggesting that accountability must extend to the highest levels of government.
On the persistence of these challenges over decades, Prof. Mahomed offered a sobering perspective: “I think people have just become so corrupt that they have forgotten their essence of being a human being. The essence of being soft, kind and gentle to a fellow human being.”
He proposed a direct test of political commitment: “Let’s stop [politicians’] medical aid immediately and ask each of these patients to use each of these politicians to immediately use government facilities. Let’s put the money where your mouth is.” He referenced Namibia as an African example where such policy shifts have driven change.
Prof. Mahomed concluded with an urgent call to action: “Nothing is lost if we start today… But it needs leadership from the front and it needs ownership and responsibility… The time to change is now and the time for accountability is now.”
