Frustrated residents of Nellmapius next to Mamelodi township have decided to chase away all foreigners trying to use the local clinic on Monday.
This as the said foreigners always flock to the clinic earlier than local residents every day and consume the already scarce medication ahead of them and cause overcrowding at the clinic.
According to residents, this leads to doctors and nurses being overworked by the extra large numbers of patients made worse by foreigners.
Local residents have to stand in long queues and by the time they reach the point to get the medical health that they desperately require, they are either turned away as the expected quota of patients has already been reached and if they are lucky to get medical treatment chances are they won’t get medication that has been prescribed to them by doctors as in most cases it shall already have been given to foreigners who are always ahead of them in the queue.
“These foreigners always come earlier than local residents to the clinic, in the wee hours of the morning before the clinic can even be opened and they use a sinister plot whereby they form a queue and put five or six stones behind them as place holders for their fellow foreigners who will be coming to the clinic later on,” explained Nellmapius community leader Caroline Mlambo.
“This means that if one wants to stand behind these foreigners in a queue one is told that the stones represent the absent foreigners who will be coming to the clinic later and get treatment ahead of the local residents who had come earlier than them,” lamented Mlambo.
“As local residents we come to the clinic because we can’t afford private doctors; we don’t have money, yet when we come to the clinics we find that foreigners have consumed everything; leaving us stranded as local residents who should enjoy benefits of having a clinic in our area,” she said.
“These foreigners not only consume medication that rightfully belongs to local residents but they also damage the resources and infrastructure of the clinic as they, out of ignorance, always flush disposable baby nappies down the toilet; resulting in the toilets being blocked and no longer being in a position to flush whatever is in there,” she said.
Mlambo said there is no way local Nellmapius patients can wake up at ungodly hours when it is still dark and dangerous to walk the streets, just for the sake of being ahead of the ever-present foreigners in the queue at the local clinic.
Another Nellmapius community leader Reuben Kekae explained that the campaign to get rid of foreigners at clinics and hospitals won’t stop at Nellmapius but will be spread even to the neighboring township of Mamelodi in due course.
“We know that due to our campaign to chase them away from the local Nellmapius clinic, they will try to use various clinics as well as the Mamelodi Regional Hospital but we will follow them there and make sure that they don’t get entry into the said health facilities,” vowed Kekae.
He stressed that as residents they don’t have a problem with foreigners per se, but that their target is illegal foreigners.
Kekae warned that their next place of action against illegal foreign patients will be the Mamelodi Regional Hospital, upon which they will pounce at a date that will not be announced.
ActionSA chairperson in Nellmapius Emma Tau told Tshwane Talks that she joined the campaign to prevent foreigners from accessing health care after getting reports suggesting that local residents were always being turned away from the hospital due to the overcrowding and lack of medication caused by foreigners.
“There is a shortage of staff members at the Nellmapius clinic already and if foreigners are now going to compound the situation with their large numbers then there is no way local patients would get the medical treatment that they deserve,” said Tau.
“We are not xenophobic or anything of that sort but we are going to voice out our displeasure against foreigners invading our health care systems unduly until the government listens to what we are saying,” she enthused.
Yet another ActionSA member Pinky Madiba raised concern about the shortage of cleaners at the Nellmapius clinic and maintenance workers and indicated that the clinic’s toilets have a lingering foul smell which is obviously not conducive to the already sick people visiting the clinic.
According to her, there are no porters at the clinic to usher in the physically-disabled patients, especially the elderly.
It has emerged that student nurses only come to the Nellmapius once a year and that there are no student doctors at all to assist with the workload at the clinic.