WHITE RIVER – “Those who have headache today should go home because we have no painkillers here.”
This is one of the regular statements patients at the local clinic are slowly getting used to.
According to the patients, they have been sent home without antibiotics and medication for the past few weeks because they were told that “there is no medication at the clinic.”
“To make matters worse, the clinic’s only male nurse doesn’t even talk to us properly.
He stands at the door and addresses us like children, telling us that we should go home if we decided to have headaches because the clinic is not in a position to supply us with pain relief. Who decides to be sick?” asked an angry Ms Sharon Mgibe.-
The shortage coincided with a flu virus that had gone viral and mothers of young children felt the pinch as well.
“My 18-month-old son was very sick and when I got to the clinic he was only given vitamin syrup while they should have given him antibiotics. They could not even give him a simple bottle of Panado.
It’s even more frustrating that even at the hospital they cannot treat us unless we have a referral letter,” said Ms Thembi Seleka.
We contacted the health department to determine if there was a crisis and this is what the spokesperson, Mr Dumisani Malamule had to say,
“We have received reports from clinics about shortages and we cay safely say that the situation is not at a crisis level. Clinics have been asked to reduce prescriptions since the depot that supplies us has to sort out issues of expired contracts with their service providers.”
