The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) have put Durban's Addington Hospital management on terms over shoddy health services.

A group of EFF supporters‚ led by two of their MPs‚ Hlengiwe Mkhaliphi and Phillip Mhlongo‚ marched to the hospital and demanded a response within 14 days from management on the demands they presented on Wednesday.

The demands include: - 24-hour operation of the Surgical Out Patient and Oncology departments to deal with the backlog; - Employment of more doctors and nurses; - Fixing broken machinery‚ including but not limited to equipment for CT scans and endoscopes; - A special section for children while the children’s hospital is being renovated; and - Insourcing of security guards and cleaning personnel.

Mkhaliphi‚ who delivered the memorandum to the hospital CEO‚ Dr Mtheleli Ndlangisa‚ said: “At no stage that we are trying to threaten you but as the EFF we have a potential to come back within 14 days to demand these things that we are saying here.”

Ndlangisa told the EFF supporters that while he accepted their memorandum‚ as hospital management they were not able to respond to their demands.

“We take your demands and obviously as the government of KZN is responsible to respond at political level‚ as administrators and officials of the department‚ we are unable to respond to your demands but we will take them to our MEC and principals. I hope they will respond in 14 days as you are demanding.”

Last month the KZN department of health announced that the oncology department at Addington Hospital was expected be fully functional again in just three months.

Provincial Health MEC Sibongiseni Dhlomo has recently come under fire after a South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) probe last year found the department guilty of violating the rights of cancer patients in the province to have access to health care.

Among the problems found was that while chemotherapy for cancer patients continued at Addington‚ radiotherapy treatment to hundreds of patients had ceased following the breakdown of two then-state-of-the art machines.

This was due to a bungle with the maintenance contract.