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 - a service provided to the SA Police Service and National Prosecuting Authority, essential in the investigation of so-called non-natural 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.
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.(from IOL)
Briefing members, health department cluster manager Melvyn Freeman said a "reasonable" time frame for toxicology analysis - a service provided to the SA Police Service and National Prosecuting Authority, essential in the investigation of so-called non-natural 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.
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.(from IOL)
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