Mary Papayya

Mary Papayya

The KwaZulu-Natal health department wants the Democratic Alliance (DA) to apologise to health care workers at the Umhlatuze hospital in northern Zululand after a spat over a missing HIV result.

DA spokesman Diane Kohler Barnard accused hospital lab staff of negligence, saying they had lost the HIV blood sample of an accident victim after paramedic Christa Uys had suffered a classified needle stick injury at the accident scene on Saturday.

"The doctor informed her that samples were lost on a regular basis," Kohler Barnard said.

Uys is the fiancée of newly elected DA Umhlatuze councillor Werner Fourie who has a hospital letter confirming that the accident victim's blood sample had been lost.

But health spokesman Leon Mbangwa said there was no case of negligence.

He said Fourie had "provided the wrong date for when the sample was taken" and that's why it could not be traced. When the correct date was ascertained the HIV results were unlawfully disclosed.

Mbangwa said staff would be probed for having made the disclosure.