The maintenance contract for two state-of-the-art cancer radiotherapy machines at a Durban hospital has not been paid for the past 11 months. [s]News24[/s] reports that this is according to the [b]Health and Other Service Personnel Trade Union[/b] (Hospersa) who said in an open letter to [b]Addington Hospital’s[/b] CEO Dr Mthetheleli Ndlangisa that only one of the machines was in working order and there was now a six-month backlog in treating patients. Werner Bergere, the CEO of [b]Tecmed[/b], which is responsible for servicing the machines, confirmed that the contract had not been paid for the past 11 months. The report says it is not the first time payment issues relating to the maintenance of the two machines made headlines. Early last year, Tecmed refused to service them after having not been paid for nine months. At the time [b]KwaZulu-Natal Health[/b] MEC Sibongiseni Dhlomo said it had suspended its contract with Tecmed, claiming the company had obtained the tender fraudulently. To date, Tecmed has not been charged and it is not clear what became of either investigation.
[link url=http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Cancer-machines-maintenance-not-paid-Hospersa-20140607]Full News24 report[/link]