HEALTH Minister Aaron Motsoaledi wants to know how a bogus doctor was allowed to practise as a neurosurgeon in South African hospitals.

Motsoaledi, who has described the incident as horrific, has summoned the Health Professions Council of SA to an urgent meeting where he will demand answers.

The minister sprang into action following reports by Sowetan about a neurosurgeon who has been struck off the roll after it turned out he was a fake.

The Gauteng health department is now seeking legal advice on the matter.

Despite having been fired in Botswana and Zimbabwe, Nyunyi Wambuyi Katumba, who is originally from Democratic Republic of Congo, was employed by at least three hospitals in South Africa.

The hospitals - Baragwanath in Soweto, Steve Biko Academic in Pretoria and Mediclinic Medforum in Pretoria - have since fired him.

"Something is clearly wrong and we want to know what happened," Motsoaledi told Sowetan yesterday.

"The HPCSA does not usually make a mistake of registering a fake doctor because the screening is tight.

"Either someone at the council slept on the job or they collaborated in this mess. We need to find out," he said. "We cannot allow this kind of carelessness to be done by a respected body such as the HPCSA."

Katumba was struck off the roll by the HPCSA in December after failing to prove that he was a qualified neurosurgeon.

The council has failed to explain how he was registered in the first place, as it is charged with the responsibility of checking out applicants' credentials before registering them.

It took four years for the council to discover that Katumba was a fake.

In 2009, Katumba was fired by the Gauteng health department for lacking the necessary requirements for the position.

His union, PSA, took the department to task, alleging unfair dismissal and won.

According to the union, Katumba's style of work differed from that of South Africa because "he trained in Belgium". At the time, the department was ordered to reinstate him from June 2010 and pay him eight months' salary, backdated from the date of his dismissal. The total amount paid to him was R360000.

But in December, a year after winning the case, Katumba was exposed as a fake and was dismissed from three hospitals. He also worked as a senior specialist at the University of Limpopo.

Reacting to the latest developments, PSA chief labour relations officer Elsa Schirge said they still supported Katumba.

"We have advised him on what to do in the wake of the latest developments but I cannot share that information with you," said Schirge.