community
struggles for health care
By BRIAN KAJENGO
The department of Health seems to have forgotten about the
community of Hlalanikahle’s desperate need for their Community Health Centre
(CHC) to be re-opened.
The clinic closed last year following recommendations from the
department of Labour due to problems relating to infrastructure, dysfunctional
equipment and medication that had expired.
Since then, there has been no sign of any repair or maintenance work
to the clinic nor has there been any indication of when it will re-open.
For those who used to use this clinic, even state health care has
become a luxury because they now forced to travel to Siphosensimbi CHC which,
although close by, services a population of almost 50 000. The clinic
refers its critical cases to the Witbank
Hospital and Impungwe Hospital
Irrespective of its seven consulting rooms, Siphosensimbi gets
overly crowded and patients have to wait for more than four hours to get help.
This, while the department of health continues to underspend year after year on
conditional grants allocated from the national treasury.
Last year, the department failed to spend over R223 million
reserved for hospital revitalisation and lost R65 million reserved for
improving health infrastructure. This money was returned to national treasury
and communities such as Hlalanikahle are left battling to access even the most
basic health care.
The DA will put questions to the department of health asking MEC
Gillion Mashego when the Hlalanikahle CHC will be reopened. We will also ask
MEC Mashego to provide a detailed action plan for the communities affected by
the department’s failure to spend its grants.
As the Legislature prepares to sit in eMalahleni in March, the DA
hopes that this opportunity used to see first-hand how it is ordinary people
who suffer when the government fails. Until then, the DA will continue fighting
to ensure that the clinic is revamped, reopened and fully operational by March.
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