Department ordered to pay nursing agency
The KwaZulu-Natal health department has been ordered to pay a personnel agency that hired striking provincial government nurses to keep hospitals operating, the Mercury newspaper reported on Friday.
Durban High Court Judge Jerome Mnguni ordered the department to pay Ambition24 R906,500.
The court previously heard that striking nurses from hospitals as far away as Empangeni were employed by recruitment agency Ambition24.
They were sent to Durban's Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Hospital to replace workers striking at that hospital in August 2010.
However, the department withheld R636,000 for its striking staff who were moonlighting and therefore breaking departmental rules.
According to the Mercury, Mnguni said those rules were between the department and its employees and had nothing to do with the contract between Ambition24 and the department.
Mnguni was also quoted as saying nothing in the contract prevented Ambition24 from providing staff that were employed by the department.
(File photo: Gallo Images)