Hon Speaker, I will respond to two issues. The first issue I wish to respond to is that of negligence at Leratong Hospital. I want to condemn it in the strongest terms, because we want quality care at all of this country's public institutions.
However, I do not want us to politicise painful things like this. I don't want us to do so because, for your information, the public servants who do these bad things might actually belong to your party! [Applause.] It is not clear that the nurses, or whoever did this, belong to the ANC. For your information, there are people who are not politicising this matter.
The secretary-general of a very important trade union in this country wrote me a letter about his experience in Leratong Hospital. I have already sent a team there. It is investigating the matter and we are going to take action. That person did not politicise it, because he knew it was not done by the ANC or by me; it was done by a public servant who is going to be held to account.
Lastly on this matter, I came to this Parliament and asked it to pass a Bill to establish an Office of Health Standards Compliance to deal with matters like these. The board of that office was appointed only last month. It is chaired by a prominent surgeon, Prof Lizo Mazwai, who is going to make sure that these types of things do not happen. That office will have an ombudsperson to whom all these matters will be reported. We have done this because we want good quality health care in our health institutions. I would like this matter, rather than being politicised, to be brought to me. We will investigate it, and we will definitely take appropriate action. [Applause.] The raising of the issue of Cuban medical students is a pity. We do not have enough medical schools in this country. Whilst our population consists of 51 million people, we have had only eight medical schools throughout the history of South Africa. Cuba, with 11 million people, has 27 medical schools! [Interjections.] That is why there are students in Cuba from 123 countries around the world. [Time expired.] [Applause.]
Hon Minister Oliphant has passed on her slot to the hon Minister of Labour. [Interjections.] All right. Hon Minister of Health, you do have a couple of seconds left. Please proceed and finish your statement. The Ministers are giving you their slots, sir.
I was just saying, hon Speaker, that there are students from 123 countries around the world who are at present studying medicine in Cuba. For the DA to believe that this is not good quality is quite regrettable. [Interjections.] We will solve this problem by making sure that the programme is national. The students themselves have asked us to make this programme national.
This is so that we do not have one part of the country regarding itself as a sovereign state, when it is just a province. [Applause.] The MEC in the Western Cape lied to the public by saying that they approached the University of Cape Town, specifically for students in the Western Cape. That programme was done by me - nationally - with all eight universities. I have given them R65 million to do that, to take 400 extra students from the entire country, not only from the Western Cape. [Interjections.] The University of Cape Town is not a university for the Western Cape only. It is a university for all of South Africa. It will train everybody from all over the country. Thank you. [Applause.]