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The Gauteng Department of Health has obtained a court interdict in response to the ongoing protests at Kalafong Hospital in Pretoria.
This after international non-governmental organisation (NGO), Doctors Without Borders, last week, said xenophobia was intensifying across South Africa’s health facilities and that healthcare was being politicised.
The organisation said there was an increasing trend in Gauteng hospitals, whereby immigrants are denied access by facility staff.
For several weeks, a group purporting to be part of the Operation Dudula movement has been preventing patients from entering the Kalafong Hospital, according to Doctors Without Borders.
Operation Dudula has been targeting illegal and undocumented migrants in areas with a high density of foreigners since the start of the year.
The NGO said the protesters were demanding that all foreign nationals be removed from the facility.
“They have even demanded that critically ill patients, who are migrants, must be ‘unplugged’ and taken out,” Tshwane’s health promotion supervisor for Doctors Without Borders, Sibusiso Ndlovu, said.
Ndlovu revealed that several people were being turned away by the protestors “based on their appearance and accent”.
The provincial department confirmed to The Citizen that it was granted an interdict against the protesters on Friday.
“The department obtained a court interdict on Friday, from the High Court, Gauteng Division, in Pretoria interdicting a group of people from threatening, preventing and denying patients (deemed to be non-South African) and employees at Kalafong Hospital from accessing the facility to receive medical attention and to administer care respectively,” the department said on Monday.
“The department cautions the public against obstructing access to health care services which is a fundamental human right. The department will not hesitate to call on law enforcement to act against those that put the lives of patients and staff at risk,” it further said.
Meanwhile, the NGO revealed that it has recorded a number of cases where legal immigrants were being denied care.
“Many of these instances involve access to maternal and child health, which is guaranteed under South Africa’s constitution and through various laws and healthcare policies,” the organisation said in a statement.
Comments made by Limpopo health MEC Dr Phophi Ramathuba has rubbed some people off the wrong way after she blamed the lack of hospital service delivery in her province on the burden of having to treat foreign nationals.
In a video clip, Ramathuba was heard telling an alleged Zimbabwean patient that she was confined to the Bela-Bela Hospital in Limpopo until she paid her medical bills.
The Limpopo Health MEC has doubled down on her views amid calls for her to resign from her position.
In a statement, the Progressive Health Forum (PHF) labelled Ramathuba’s comments as offensive and showing disdain for foreign nationals.
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“This is deeply offensive on many levels, not least in her conduct as a health professional sworn to uphold her oath. The MEC appears to also wrongly believe that her oath of political office trumps her ethical undertaking,” the organisation said.
“The MEC’s reprehensible utterances are now filtering through to other facilities, where there are reports of undocumented foreigners being denied urgent care, which is unconstitutional, and contradicts ethical norms.
“Unlike politicians, health professionals may not make a discriminatory distinction, based on a person’s origin, circumstances or behaviour,” the PHF added.
The Citizen has reached out to Operation Dudula for comment.
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