HEALTH4SALE: Limpopo air ambulance service grounded after dodgy contract By Anso Thom and Marcus Low for Spotlight
Phuluso Ambulance Services scored a six-month contract in a joint venture with Fim Aviation, a one-man outfit, also with no track record in aeromedical operations. Fim Aviation then brought in Johannesburg-based Black Eagle Aviation to supply a medically equipped helicopter and crew at the Polokwane base as it did not at the time have the correct licensing to operate an aeromedical service. Why the province did not contract Black Eagle Aviation directly is not known.
Phuluso’s directors are Louis Trichardt general practitioner Dr Muraga Vincent Mpilo and Polokwane obstetrician-gynaecologist and Mediclinic Limpopo director Dr Fulufhelo Tshivhula. Several attempts by Spotlight for comment from the two doctors were ignored. Mudau demanded to know where Spotlight had got his number and refused to answer any further questions.
The bid documents for the Limpopo aeromedical service were first published on 28 August 2018, calling for one 24-hour Air Ambulance helicopter service for a three-year period. Unlike other provinces, there was no pre-bid meeting. In October 2018, the Limpopo health department asked service providers to submit bids for a month-to-month aeromedical service.Red Cross Air Mercy Service confirmed that they were contacted via email on 16 October 2018 at 4.08pm and given only until 11am on 18 October to submit a substantive quote for the month-to-month service. This included getting the physically signed documents from Cape Town to Polokwane via courier.
Spotlight made several attempts to get a comment from the Limpopo health department and it was only after alerting the national health department that responses were forthcoming.
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