THE National Health Laboratory Service has lost its fight with KwaZulu-Natal’s health department over how much the province owes it for diagnostic tests, after an arbitrator appointed by Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi found in favour of the province.The ruling relates to historical payments, not future services, so the two sides will now have to thrash out a new service-level agreement, according to Dr Motsoaledi’s spokesman, Joe Maila.This suggests the service will have to write off some of the debt it believes to be owed by KwaZulu-Natal, compounding the crippling cash flow problems that forced it to temporarily shut some of its laboratories late last year.The huge debt owed by provincial health departments has reduced the service’s capacity to train new technicians and to invest in capital projects, and has kept prices higher than they should be, its CEO, Sagie Pillay, said on the sidelines of his presentation of the organisation’s 2011-12 annual report to Parliament on Wednesd...
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