Mixed views on service delivery at Rethabile Clinic

POLOKWANE – Patients who waited for assistance in long queues at the Rethabile Community Health Centre on January 31, have mixed views of the facility’s service since an impromptu visit by Health MEC, Dr Phophi Ramathuba earlier this month.

In a video posted by the provincial department’s social media page last week, the MEC is evidently irked by the long queues of patients who had been waiting for hours; publicly scolding the clinic manager for going on lunch during a “disaster” at the clinic and nurses for attending administration duties while patients piled up at the reception area.

Read more: Diplomacy doesn’t get the job done – Health MEC on video that went viral

During Polokwane Observer’s visit to the facility on the day, the first group of patients who were let into the facility upon the show of an identity document to the security guard said the queue moved swiftly. “I arrived at 07:45 and by 07:50, I was already in the reception line to receive my file and at 08:20, I was being attended to by a nurse,” one of them said.

However, another patients who had just been let into the hospital to collect chronic medication has his reservations about being divided into queues by security personnel based on the medical treatment they intend to receive.

“The guards say to us, that those looking for chronic medication must file in a separate queue from the rest. It’s embarrassing because people start to judge you.” The patient said the action contravenes Section 14 of the Constitution, permitting a patient’s right to privacy and consent to examination.

Some Afrikaans and English speaking patients felt that the predominant use of SePedi during announcements by employees of the centre leaves them ill-informed.

“When they spoke of the divided lines in Pedi, I was confused but also not confident to speak out because we are the minority here,” one patient remarked. Another woman who had gone to the centre for family planning, said the queues would have been much shorter had the processes been implemented more smoothly. “I started by receiving my file, then someone tests my blood pressure, then I am moved to another queue for medical attention. All of these processes consume time and can be done by a single office,” she exclaimed.

All of the patients Polokwane Observer approached, requested that the departmental employees led by Ramathuba improve on their grievances, with the hope of making a better facility out of the community health centre story.

Meanwhile, Ramathuba said facts around the healthcare system need to be laid bare and responded to swiftly, while in the face of backlash by unions for scolding public service employees in the midst of their patients. “There is no malicious intent in my utterances. I am out there to improve the healthcare system in the province and until that happens, I will not rest,” she added.