The largest diagnostic pathology service in the country, National Health Laboratory Services, will be unable to offer it's full basket of services starting on Monday due to a strike by employees.
NHLS provides laboratory and related public health services to over 80% of the population which includes state owned laboratories around the Eastern Cape.
NHLS's Professor Shabir Madhi, said the strike follows a deadlock during salary negotiations, with unions demanding a 13% increase while they're offering 7%.
He said NHLS could initially only offer 3% which was amended to 7.3 percent following negotiations and interventions by the Director- General in the National Department.
"However, this revised offer has not yet been accepted by the Unions, which demanded immediate implementation of Proficiency Assessment promotion and insourcing of current security, cleaning and maintenance personnel that are contracted to external service providers. Also, 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" said Madhi.
Mahdi said the biggest challenge facing the organisation was non-payment by Provincial Departments of Health for laboratory services rendered by the NHLS.
He said the biggest defaulters are Gauteng and Kwazulu Natal Provincial Health Departments, although they have been paying their current consumption since the 2016/17 financial year they still have outstanding debt.
"This outstanding debt has negatively affected the cash flow of the NHLS. It is critical that the current efforts supported by the National Department of Health to recover money owed to the NHLS be urgently addressed to ensure the financial viability of the NHLS and enable it to continue carrying out its mandate of providing quality laboratory services to the Public Health Sector" Mahdi added.
Madhi said the labs will put contingency plans in place to mitigate the risk of compromising the lives of South Africans who are dependent on the public health sector.
He said the ultimate aim was to ensure that all emergency tests are prioritised to minimise the effect of the strike action on patient care.
