Addington’s oncology services revived
ONCOLOGY services have been fully restored at Addington Hospital, with the appointment of an oncologist and the successful repair of one radiotherapy machine and the installation of another.
Recently qualified oncologist Dr Nokwanda Zuma was introduced in a press briefing at the hospital’s oncology unit yesterday.
She said that ideally there should be at least five full-time oncologists at the hospital. “With the appointment of Dr (Shona) Bhadree, we will also eventually be able to get a head of department and get our training accredited again, so that will improve our staff complement as we will have registrars also working at Addington.”
Bhadree was expecting to join Inkosi Albert Luthuli Central Hospital (IALCH) as the clinical head of its oncology unit next month. Health MEC Sibongiseni Dhlomo explained that the oncology units at Addington and IALCH will function as one unit.
“New patients will initially be seen at Inkosi and a decision taken on where the patient will be booked for radiotherapy.
“To further maximise the utilisation of the (machines), the department is in negotiations with the Wits Health Consortium to provide two additional oncologists to be based at Addington,” he said.
The Consortium provides three oncologists to see and treat patients at IALCH five days a week.
Zuma completed her training in the Western Cape after KZN lost its accreditation to train oncologists. She said returning to work in the province, particularly at Addington, was especially important for her, as her grandmother survived cervical cancer thanks to the treatment she received at Addington’s oncology department 20 years ago.
“She is 93 and she is still alive, so being able to offer that same potentially life-saving treatment to other people is really special for me.”
She started doing exactly that last week by treating her first patient – a 73-year-old cervical cancer patient from Harding.
“Re-initiating radiotherapy here at Addington is going to be a process,” she said.
Jean-Luc Devleeshcauwer from Varian Oncology Systems said maintenance by certified bodies, company or engineers is a key element in keeping Varian machines working optimally.
“We are extremely proud that we already have eight service engineers in the country, and those people are in charge of maintaining all the machines from Varian around the country,” said Devleeshcauwer.
The maintenance contract was a bone of contention between the department and Techmed, the company which initially supplied the machines at Addington.
Regarding Techmed, Dhlomo said: “We have talked about it, we have packaged it and we have reported it to law enforcement agencies.”
Dr Anban Pillay, a deputy director-general at the national Health Department, said that after the machines at Addington broke down, Health Minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi met personally with Varian representatives.
“We’ve been involved in the service level agreement to make sure that the challenges of the past are resolved.
“We also made sure that we facilitated the grant to fund the additional machines which are coming online in July.”
Acting head of department Dr Musa Gumede said the service level agreement was already in effect for the machine which was repaired and would kick in at the expiry of the warranty of the new machine.