Health and Wellness

I am informed by the Department of Health and Wellness that:

While the lending of medical equipment is not a routine practice, there are specific circumstances where equipment may be made available to another facility, including other public or private hospitals, on the grounds of compassionate use.

This only takes place based on the following criteria:

• Where there is a surplus of the specific item and state patients would not be adversely affected;
• Where another facility (public or private) faces a critical shortage; and
• Where the action will make the difference in safeguarding a patient’s life.

In such cases, the decision is informed by ethics, compassion, and clinical urgency.

(a) The frameworks referred to are the applicable legislative, governance, delegation, and asset-management frameworks that regulate the use and safeguarding of state assets. These include the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, the National Health Act, 2003, the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA), applicable supply chain management and asset-management prescripts and internal delegations.

The Department has also formalised and regulated the process for another public or private entity to make temporary use of moveable assets that remain on the asset register of a Western Cape Department of Health and Wellness entity through SCM Instruction 3/2026. This standard operating procedure provides a controlled, transparent and accountable process for such temporary arrangements, where an urgent critical clinical need has been identified, where no state patient is adversely affected and the relevant approval has been obtained.

(b)(i) In practice, these frameworks operate by ensuring that any temporary use of moveable assets is exceptional, short term, properly motivated, and approved through the correct delegated authority.

The requesting public or private entity must formally motivate the need for the asset. The relevant manager, asset custodian, and SCM asset-management team must then consider the request, confirm that the asset is available, and confirm that its temporary use by another entity will not jeopardise operations at the Western Cape Department of Health and Wellness facility.

The receiving entity accepts responsibility for safeguarding the asset for the full period in which it is in its care. The asset remains the property of the Western Cape Department of Health and Wellness and must be returned by the agreed date.

This supports PFMA compliance by ensuring that state assets are not exposed to unauthorised use or loss.

(b)(ii) Monitoring and enforcement are built into the process through several controls.

The SCM asset-management team maintains the moveable asset register, processes requests, controls documentation, and updates the asset database where required. The asset custodian inspects and tests the asset before release and document its condition. On return, the asset must be inspected again to confirm that it has been returned in the same condition.

If the asset is lost, damaged, destroyed, not returned on time, or not returned in the same condition, the receiving entity may be held liable in terms of the signed declaration and terms and conditions. Compliance is further supported through normal internal control, management oversight, SCM processes, asset-management controls, and audit processes.

(c)

As the process is intended for exceptional, short-term use only, the effectiveness of the framework is assessed primarily through compliance with the documented control process, proper safeguarding of the asset, return of the asset, and the absence or proper resolution of asset losses, damage, unauthorised use, or audit findings.