NHLS warns laboratory services affected by strike – DA calls for private testing

26 July 2017 - 14:56 By Ernest Mabuza
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The National Health Laboratory Service will not be able to offer the full basket of its laboratory services from Wednesday as the result of a strike by its employees. File photo.
The National Health Laboratory Service will not be able to offer the full basket of its laboratory services from Wednesday as the result of a strike by its employees. File photo.
Image: Thinkstock

The National Health Laboratory Service says it will not be able to offer the full basket of its laboratory services from Wednesday as the result of a strike by more than 5‚000 of its 6‚800 employees.

The service provides medical laboratory services to all patients who use state facilities.

However‚ the Democratic Alliance in Gauteng said lives could be at risk if there were delays in tests for HIV/Aids‚ malaria‚ cancer‚ and multi-drug resistant TB. It said patients would be inconvenienced by waiting for results of many other blood tests.

DA health spokesman in Gauteng Jack Bloom said private laboratories should be used as much as possible. However‚ he warned they would probably not cope with all the tests for state patients.

NHLS provides laboratory and related public health services to over 80% of the population through a national network of laboratories.

NHLS said its biggest challenge facing the service was non-payment by provincial health departments for laboratory services rendered by the NHLS.

It singled out the Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal health departments as the biggest defaulters but said KwaZulu-Natal had been paying for their current consumption since the 2016/2017 financial year.

In a written reply to a question posed by the DA in the Gauteng Legislature‚ health MEC Gwen Ramokgopa said the department owed R696m to the NHLS.

The service expressed regret it could not reach agreement with unions at its last meeting on Monday.

Unions are demanding‚ among other things‚ a 7.3% salary increase‚ a R2‚000 housing allowance and a R50 shift allowance.

The service said this outstanding debt had negatively affected the cash flow of the NHLS.

In a statement‚ NHLS executive director Prof Shabir Madhi said all NHLS provincial area managers would be working with their counterparts in the provincial health departments to address challenges that were specific to their provinces.

“The ultimate aim is to ensure that all emergency tests are prioritised to minimise the effect of this strike action on patient care.”

- TimesLIVE

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