Healthcare professionals have been deployed to provide healthcare services to members of the SANDF. These include doctors, nurses, psychologists, social workers, pharmacist and many other medical disciplines. An additional number of healthcare professionals from volunteers and members of the reserve forces has been added to support the National Department of Health.
This was announced earlier tonight by the Minister of Defence Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, who was joined by Police Minister, Bheki Cele, the Minister of Home Affairs, Aaron Motsoaledi in a media briefing by the Justice, Crime Prevention and Safety Cluster, to outline further regulations that will apply in the sector during lockdown level three.
The minister said the main tasks of the deployed forces include health care services, engineering capabilities and lockdown enforcement elements. The force levels will escalate in accordance with the growing numbers of Covid-19 cases within force level availability of 73 000, she said.
“Scanning teams have also been deployed with the SANDF units in all provinces. These Military Health Care Practitioners are performing thermal scans on citizens during patrols at vehicle control points and roadblocks. These will assist with early detection of people who might be infected with Covid-19 and in doing so mitigate the spread of the virus,” Mapisa-Nqakula added.
Primary Healthcare Teams have been deployed to all nine provinces to support the Health Department with a mass screening and testing initiative. These teams are being deployed in urban and rural areas and to areas where no infrastructures exits. Mass quarantine sites from military facilities have been identified and can accommodate a total of 2 481 beds in the following provinces: Kwa-Zulu Natal, the Western Cape, Gauteng and Limpopo. Decontamination teams are placed on standby in Pretoria to conduct industrial scale decontamination and will be deployed to areas as the need arises.
The minister also mentioned that engineers from the SANDF were deployed to Thabazimbi in Limpopo, Hartswater in the Northern Cape, Vrede in the Free State, Legonyane and Fafung village in the North West and Nkodide in Kwa-Zulu Natal for the purpose to purify water and distribute it to areas of need.
Four teams of these engineers will be deployed in the rural areas of the Eastern Cape and Kwa-Zulu Natal to build bridges in order to assist the population to access services. In the past two weeks, inspection and oversight visits have been taken to Hoedspruit Air Force Base where SAAF trainees are undergoing training; Oudtshoorn at the South African Army Infantry School; Western Cape in Simonstown at SA Navy facilities; and Saldanha at the Military Academy. There will be ongoing visits to our other facilities in Gauteng and other provinces to establish the state of readiness, she added.
The minister reiterated that under level three, the South African borders are still closed for travel except for evacuation of stranded and distressed RSA citizens, evacuation of foreign nationals by respective foreign missions and movement of medical-ill treatment cases, and the transportation of goods to and from neighbouring states.
Daily commuters from neighbouring countries who attend school will be allowed to enter the country’s borders with a special permit subject to all Covid-19 regulations on transport and health, the minister announced.
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