SHAYANDIMA - The newly appointed Chief Executive Officer of the Tshilidzini Hospital, Mr Magwedzha Mphaphuli has vowed that there will be no mercy against all corrupt elements within the institution.

According to Mphaphuli (53), the "days are numbered for corrupt elements at the hospital."

Mphaphuli worked as an RDP manager in the province in 1994 to 1996, before he became the manager for the Premier's office in the Vhembe District. Since he came to the hospital, Mphaphuli says the glaring record of fraud and corruption that also involved senior members shocked him.

One member, Mavhungu Welcher Mudau (39), a Chief Professional Nurse, has already been suspended for three months without pay. This was after he was found guilty of negligence after he was found responsible for the loss of R4 000 belonging to a patient, Joseph Mushavhela.

The money went missing on April 22 last year. Mudau was suspended from April 15, 2003 after the disciplinary committee found him guilty. He was also given a final warning.

The disciplinary committee also recommended that Mudau should be given some counselling as soon as he comes back to work on July 15, so that he should not repeat this mistake.

Mphaphuli said there are still many cases that will take long to be finalised by the DC. The investigating team is still investigating many of such cases. Among these cases is the one involving senior professional nurses who are charging R300 for the termination of pregnancies while such a service is supposed to be free of charge.

The other case under investigation involves a cashier who defrauded the hospital by taking 25% of the money paid to the hospital by the patients. "We discovered that the officer would write a slip of R10 to a patient while the patient has actually paid R15. Sometimes the officer would not write a slip at all. The other case involves more than three ambulance drivers who colluded with petrol attendants so that they could give them slips of petrol which was never filled in the ambulance."

Some of these drivers will make more than R500 a day. "We believe there are still many officers who might be involved in different types of corruption as this has been happening since the year 2000", he said

Mphaphuli said they were also going to improve their system to avoid some of the corruption like in revenue collection. He appealed to the community to help through supplying ideas through the suggestion box.