Question NW2828 to the Minister of Health
11 December 2017 - NW2828
America, Mr D to ask the Minister of Health
(1) What is the backlog in (a) postmortem reports, (b) toxicology reports and (c) blood-alcohol test samples in laboratories administered by his department in each province (i) in the 2016-17 financial year and (ii) since 1 April 2017; (2) what are the challenges experienced by his department in eliminating the specified backlog; (3) what steps has his department taken to address the challenges experienced?
Reply:
(1) (a), (b), (c) The Department of Health has four (4) Forensic Chemistry Laboratories in the whole country and these are not necessarily distributed Provincially and hence I cannot give you any provincial figures.
(i) and (ii) Please see above
(2) The challenges in the Forensic Chemistry Laboratories relate to high volumes of samples received for blood alcohol for drunken driving which increases the workload. These high volumes in blood alcohol sample were received in the 2016/17 and the first five months of 2017/18.
(3) The Department has purchased additional equipment to deal with the blood alcohol volumes.
Secondly samples are distributed across the four (4) FCLs.
Overtime work is also implemented to assist in decreasing the backlog.
Finally, the real solution is to reduce the high incidence of drunken driving in our roads.
END.