Forensic backlog years long
2010-09-01 21:28
Cape Town - Backlogs in toxicology testing at South Africa's three skills-strapped forensic laboratories are measured in years, Parliament's health portfolio committee heard on Wednesday.
Briefing members, health department cluster manager Melvyn Freeman said a "reasonable" time frame for toxicology analysis - an essential service provided to the SAPS and the NPA in the investigation of so-called "non-natura"l deaths - was two months.
But responding later to a question from Democratic Alliance MP Mike Waters, he conceded that the actual backlog was much longer than this.
Waters, who paid a visit to the three forensic laboratories in April this year, said the toxicology backlog at the Cape Town laboratory was seven years long; at Johannesburg eight years; and at Pretoria four years.
The three state laboratories serve all nine provinces.
"Where people are waiting for that report, they can't move on with their lives. They've got to... submit it to insurance companies... to get the money to move on. Many people lose their homes in the interim because of this," he said.
Waters also gave figures for the backlogs in the three laboratories' other key functions - blood alcohol analysis, mainly involving drunk driving; and food analysis.
"On drunken driving... it's between 12 and 16 weeks in Cape Town. In Johannesburg it's three years... By that time the court's thrown the case out and the guy's got away with it. And in Pretoria it's 16 to 18 weeks.
"As far as food samples are concerned... Cape Town has an 11-month backlog, Johannesburg doesn't do food samples... and Pretoria is three years," he said.
On the size of the backlogs, Freeman agreed with Waters' figures.
Getting bigger
"If they've changed, they've changed in very small amounts," he admitted.
Freeman then said the backlogs were actually getting bigger each month.
"The (staff) vacancy rate really is the major cause of the serious backlogs we have, and... at the moment we're getting in more samples than we can analyse. What's coming in every month, is more than what goes out.
"So, far from getting rid of the old backlogs, the backlogs are getting more each month and we have to get people in to deal with this situation," he told the committee.
Earlier, he said there were seven staff vacancies in Cape Town (out of 36 posts); four vacancies in Johannesburg (out of 35 posts); and eight vacancies in Pretoria (out of 29 posts).
Asked how the laboratories planned to wipe out the backlogs, Freeman said it was not possible to put a date on this.
"We need to get the right staff, we need to get the right equipment and we need to get the right goods and services to be able to do this properly.
"I can't say to you it's going to take x-number of years, because it's going to depend on what's out there, how long it's going to take to get people in, how long it's going to take to train them.
"So, it's not going to be a miraculous change even if we do get a lot of staff... I can't give you exact dates, but what I can say is that we will slowly start reducing the backlog if we get the people and if we get the goods and services," Freeman said.
An "injection of adequate funding" was the key to turning the situation around.
"Each year we request more funding for these laboratories. Last year, we requested R22 million from Treasury. They managed to give us R2m.
"We can do something with R2m, but the amount that we need to do a proper turn-a-round is substantially higher than this. This year, the department is going to be putting in a bid for R30m," he said.
- SAPA