A row has broken out over the construction of a top-notch cancer hospital for Mthatha.
Entrepreneur developer Dr Percy Mahlathi is pitching hard to the provincial government to allow him to exercise the licence he has been granted to build a 150-bed private oncology hospital by building it on the same property that is home to the Nelson Mandela Central Hospital.
Last week the academic hospital reacted with dismay to Mahlati’s Pretoria-based Selizwe Health’s bid to build on their erf 2438/R, saying the provincial government was going to build them a R350m state-of-the-art oncology unit on the erf.
Mahlathi is a former deputy director-general of the national health department.
This erf is also home to some of the Walter Sisulu University medical school facilities down the Sisson Street in Fort Gale in Mthatha.
The academic hospital’s board chairman, advocate Vuzumzi Msiwa, said: “I received an application letter that asked to open an oncology unit but not within the premises. “They requested to erect the building towards Blackway, far away from our hospital. We have not approved that and we will only table it in our next board meeting on August 17.”
“Yes we need an oncology unit, but it cannot be run by a private company in a public hospital.
“That will create unnecessary competition and defeat the purpose of a public hospital.
“It will be not in the interest of those who established the academic hospital for destitute people.”
The hospital’s management, including CEO Nomalanga Makwedini and Dr Mbuyiselo Madiba, said every piece of land allocated to the hospital was earmarked for development.
Madiba said: “We are disputing that there is free land. They are supposed to come to us and ask if we have land. We are already running an oncology service and we have temporary facilities that house cancer patients, and within the next three years an oncology unit will be fully functional.”
Madiba said it was a surprise to them that their land had been leased to a private company.
“That is our land. It belongs to the Nelson Mandela Academic Hospital from the R61 route to Ngcobo to the N2 and nothing except for the oncology unit and the medical school are going to be built [on it]. We are disputing that there is free land here and we were never consulted about any leasing.
“If they had, they would know there is no vacant land here,” Madiba said.
“It is irritating that when you’re trying do something someone comes and disrupts you. This is not acceptable.”
However, Mahlathi said he had a licence already and that the land was not owned by the hospital. “The department of public works would not give me occupied land.
“I approached public works, as they are the custodians of the land for government.”
Provincial health spokesman Lwandile Sicwetsha said: “The department of public works will still need the go-ahead from the board [of the hospital] about this, as the board represents the community on issues of land. We are planning our own public oncology unit but details [of the unit] will be released later by the principal of the department when they are ready.”
The Dispatch has seen a letter dated May 5 from provincial public works head advocate James Mlawu to his health counterpart, superintendent-general Thobile Mbengashe, in which Mlawu proposes that the land be leased to Selizwe Health in terms of a “partnership” in which the lease will provide a “constant revenue stream” for the health department.
Mlawu said this would also promote “interaction and co-use of private and state health facilities”. All it needed, wrote Mlawu, was “your [Mbengashe’s] support...