National lab service is owed R5bn

File photo: AP

File photo: AP

Published Jul 26, 2017

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The national Health Department has asked its provincial counterparts to pay about R5 billion owed to the National Health Laboratory Service (NHLS) within seven days.

This as the service's workers embarked on a strike yesterday. NHLS employees are deadlocked in salary negotiations.

Health Department spokesperson Popo Maja said the department’s director-general has facilitated meetings between labour and the NHLS board to resolve the dispute.

“It cannot be denied that the provinces’ lack of payment for services have contributed to cash flow problems at NHLS. The department has contacted provincial health and treasury regarding outstanding amounts owing. These provinces have been requested to pay outstanding accounts within a period of seven working days. Alternative measures to access the funds owed by provinces are being pursued with National Treasury," said Maja.

NHLS acting chief executive Shabir Madhi said despite attempts at addressing the demands of unions, the parties had been unable to reach a compromise.

“This, despite significant compromises approved by the NHLS board that pose a significant financial risk to the NHLS should it not receive payments due to it and servicing of debt totalling more than R5bn owed to it by a select few provincial departments of health,” he said.

Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal health departments reportedly owed billions of rands. The initial demand by the unions was an annual increase of 13% across the board for employees in the A-D1 bands. 

The NHLS proposed among others, a 7.3% salary increase to staff in the A-D1 bands, the implementation of the Proficiency Assessment for the key health professional roles subject to the finalisation of the evaluation-scoring tool with relevant disciplines; and the implementation thereof within the 2017/8 financial year.

The NHLS has also proposed the implementation of insourcing and the phasing in thereof with effect from April, subject to finalising an agreed modality for its implementation, which will include holistic costing by the “insourcing task team”.

However, this revised offer has not yet been accepted by the unions, which have called for the immediate implementation of Proficiency Assessment promotion and insourcing of current security, cleaning and maintenance personnel.

“The NHLS board is unable to accede to these timelines, since the tools and the full costing to enable Proficiency Assessment promotion and insourcing are yet to be finalised and approved by the NHLS board."

Madhi said the NHLS aimed to ensure all emergency tests are prioritised to minimise the effect of strike action on patient care.

National Education Health and Allied Workers Union national spokesperson Khaya Xaba said the unions had organised 60% of the workforce, amounting to about 5000 employees on strike.

He said issues of wages, housing allowances, insourcing and maladministration needed to be addressed urgently.

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