Livingston Hospital opens doors to R100 million oncology ward

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Eastern Cape Health MEC, Sicelo Ggobana, has officially opened a R100 million oncology ward at Port Elizabeth's Livingstone Hospital.

He said on Friday that the project led to the employment of more than 200 people during the construction phase.

MEC Gqobana said he's happy that the new investment would enable health officials to deal with a range of medical problems because of the high-tech equipment in the new facility and care offered by staff.

He said the new facility is not only par with what is available in the private sector, but surpasses it.

"If you look at the quality of equipment, the quality of beds, the quality of how we attend to diseases, its a highly technological installation and investment that we've made. I'm quite happy that we are able to attend to every sickness that our people are going through by creating a high standard of equipment (sic) as well as care," he said.

Meanwhile, in a seperate matter, Gqobana said that the Eastern Cape Health Department is making progress in dealing with payments made to so-called ghost employees.

He said it was discovered in August last year that that some R8m had been paid to more than a thousand fictious health employees.

Gqobana said systems are being put in place to recover the money and to ensure that monies are paid to the correct employees.