• The Gauteng health department says Charlotte Maxeke hospital still offers heart surgery despite claims that many patients are dying there.

• DA spokesperson Jack Bloom says heart patients are dying because of poor management and he wants the health ombud to investigate.

Patients at Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital are caught between the Gauteng health department and the DA. The department says the hospital is a major centre for heart surgery for people in Gauteng and nearby provinces.

DA Gauteng health spokesperson Jack Bloom says the department is badly run. He says a 20% death rate for heart surgery is too high. Bloom says heart surgeries have dropped from several hundred a year to about 200.

The department says these claims are not based on verified data. Officials say surgery outcomes must be measured using international methods that look at how sick a patient is. They say ignoring these facts is wrong and misleads the public.

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The department also says there is no cover-up. It says it uses audits to check on patient safety. It did say that there are not enough staff and they have to do fewer surgeries so that doctors do not get too tired.

Bloom has asked Health MEC Nomantu Nkomo-Ralehoko to give the real death rates. He also asked Health Ombud Professor Taole Mokoena to investigate. Bloom says a senior surgeon who left in October warned that the system was failing patients and trainees.

The surgeon said in his letter: "My resignation is a principled protest against a system that... has failed its clinicians, its trainees, and... its patients."

The department says all complaints about training and the workplace are handled through official channels.