JOHANNESBURG, South Africa – The ANC in Limpopo has defended premier Phophi Ramathuba amid a Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) probe into her controversial remarks to a patient from Zimbabwe in Bela Bela Hospital about foreigners “killing” the health system.

The council started a formal inquiry this week into Ramathuba’s conduct, as a medical doctor, over the remarks she made in August 2022.

Ramathuba was a health MEC in Limpopo at the time and visited Bela Bela Hospital wearing her doctor’s scrubs. She raised her frustration about pressure on the health system while speaking to the woman from Zimbabwe who was admitted for surgery.

“You speak Shona, how do you find yourself in Bela Bela Hospital when you are supposed to be with [Zimbabwe President Emmerson] Mnangagwa? You know he doesn’t give me money to operate on you? I am operating on you with my limited budget. You are killing my health system,” she told the patient in front of onlookers who laughed.

The HPCSA in 2023 found she had conducted herself in an “unprofessional” manner “unbecoming of a medical professional to be shouting at a patient’s bedside”.

Despite this, the council offered her an olive branch, saying “the acceptance of the penalty will not constitute a conviction and will not be reflected against your name as a previous conviction”.

Ramathuba, however, did not accept the preliminary findings, which prompted a formal inquiry against her. She lost a case in the Gauteng High Court in Pretoria to interdict the HPCSA from conducting an inquiry against her last year.

Speaking to TimesLIVE, ANC Limpopo spokesperson Jimmy Machaka defended the premier, concurring with her stance that the HPCSA should not have investigated the matter as she “made the comments in her capacity as health MEC”.

“The ANC Limpopo has noted the case by [the] HPCSA against Ramathuba. It’s our view that Ramathuba was correct to raise alarm about the illegal foreigners who are over-burdening the health sector in our province and the country,” Machaka said.

“It is our belief there is nothing wrong about the statement she made. The statement was made in her political capacity as health MEC and should not have been subjected to HPCSA inquiry. We believe [the] HPCSA is attempting to enter political terrain.”

In the court case, judge Anthony Millar found the politician had not deregistered under the council and therefore it had the right to investigate her.

“The crisp question is this — is the applicant in her capacity as MEC a separate persona from the applicant as a medical practitioner? The office of the MEC is a political one whereas the applicant’s status as a medical practitioner is a professional one.

“It is not at issue that the applicant was registered as a medical practitioner and subject to the HPCSA before she was appointed to the office of MEC. The holding of the political office and remaining registered as a medical practitioner are not mutually exclusive.”

Millar found it was a wholly contrived and self-serving assertion that conduct is to be determined depending upon “which hat a person is wearing at the time”, adding this was not consistent with the constitutional values or the law.

“There is to my mind no distinction to be drawn between the different offices a person holds and their conduct. The applicant has no right, let alone a prima facie right to avoid the jurisdiction of the HPCSA in circumstances where she has maintained her registration in terms of the Act. The position would have been different if she had deregistered, as she is entitled to do.”