Ill employee wants to sue Cancer Association

LLOYD Mögle (34), a Cancer Association of Namibia (CAN) employee, plans to sue the organisation because it allegedly tried to get rid of him when he fell ill.

Mögle has chronic kidney failure and is currently booked off for six months. ‘I want to drag them to court. I am terribly disappointed in them. It really hurt me.’According to him, Reinette Koegelenberg, the chief executive officer of CAN, refused to accept a medical certificate booking him off for six months. ‘She blatantly said no.’This came after Mögle was initially booked off for shorter periods. The association offered him a severance package in June which he did not accept, he claimed.He joined CAN as an administrative officer on September 1 last year and became ill six months later. He says he was honest about his health status from the start.Mögle got a kidney transplant ten years ago and now needs another transplant.According to him, CAN did not register him with its medical aid or pension fund. As a result, he currently receives dialysis three times a week at the Windhoek Central Hospital – a State facility. Koegelenberg denied that they had offered Mögle a severance package. ‘We haven’t offered anything – we just started talking,’ she said.She said he made unreasonable demands, but did not want to say what these demands were. Koegelenberg said CAN was seeking ‘informed advice on how to deal with the situation’.Asked whether it was true that the association had ostracised Mögle because of his kidney failure, she said: ‘Did Lloyd [Mögle] tell you how long he worked for the Cancer Association? He worked for only six months and then fell ill. I can’t answer you now. But he cannot work at the moment.’Koegelenberg further claimed that Mögle gave up his medical aid membership. ‘He shot himself in the foot. There are always three sides to a story – my side, your side and the right side,’ she said.