The National Health Laboratory Service (NHLS) plans to work with provincial health departments to minimise the effect of a strike by its workers should this materialise, acting CEO Shabir Madhi said on Tuesday.
The NHLS is a public health laboratory service with laboratories in all nine provinces, employing approximately 7,000 people. Its activities include diagnostic laboratory services; research, teaching and training; and the production of serums for anti-snake venom.
NHLS management and officials of the National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union (Nehawu) were locked in talks over a wage dispute on Tuesday. NHLS has offered a 3% pay rise while Nehawu is demanding a 7.3% increase.
The Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) has already issued Nehawu with a certificate to embark on a protected strike, although the NHLS has not yet been notified by the union of its intention to go on strike.
Madhi said the NHLS was "fully aware of the possible negative impact that the strike may have on the public healthcare system, and NHLS management in various provinces will work with the provincial departments of health to minimise the impact thereof.
"Although the likely extent of the any strike action is unknown, the NHLS is working on contingency plans to ensure that essential laboratory services are provided in the public health sector so as to minimise compromising on the health services to South Africans dependent on the public sector."
Madhi added that the NHLS was exploring all avenues available to avert a strike "through continuous dialogue with employee representatives".
DA health spokesperson Patricia Kopane has written to Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi to request an urgent intervention from the national Health Department in the looming national pathology strike but the department’s spokesperson, Popo Maja, said the matter was in the hands of the NHLS at this stage.
Kopane believed it was crucial for the NHLS to make arrangements with private laboratories in advance, as a strike "will be devastating for patients in need of urgent tests for HIV/AIDS, malaria, cancer and multi-drug resistant TB [tuberculosis]". She noted that the NHLS was responsible for more than 80% of the country’s pathology diagnostic services.
"Most of these patients have no other option but to depend on the public health sector to provide them with pathology services, which are key to identifying whether or not patients have life-threatening and possibly contagious diseases," she said.
Kopane has asked Motsoaledi to provide a detailed plan of action, noting that "past tragedies have shown that the national Health Department’s inaction has been at the centre of too many crises in the healthcare sector".
"These strikes, like the mortuary strike in Gauteng, can have debilitating implications on the healthcare sector."
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