Cape Town - Health workers at Gugulethu community health centre say they don’t feel safe and have to constantly watch their backs while doing their duties after a security guard was shot outside the clinic.
During a visit to the clinic’s Maternity and Obstetrics Unit by Health MEC Nomafrench Mbombo to mark International Day of the Midwife on Tuesday, midwives said they loved their jobs but urged Mbombo to address safety challenges at the clinic urgently.
Mbombo, who is also a qualified midwife, visited the unit to show her appreciation of midwives on their special day, and to listen to their concerns following the shooting outside the clinic last weekend.
The unnamed guard, who works for a contracted company, All 4 Security, was doing “his rounds” at the clinic when a group of men shot him and robbed him of his firearm.
This was not the first attack on clinic personnel. In 2012 a group of men severely assaulted a security guard and left him in a critical condition after he refused to let them into the clinic.
Last year, Gugulethu residents called for security at the clinic to be beefed up after a spate of robberies there, which included the robbery of a pregnant woman who was waiting to give birth. The woman was robbed of her cellphone, apparently while in labour. A man was later apprehended by the neighbourhood watch after the woman identified him. He was handed over to the police.
UCT physiotherapists were also robbed outside the clinic premises while waiting for their transport at the neighbouring Thembalethu School. The women fled into the clinic, chased by armed men who snatched their cellphones and handbags.
In a separate incident, young men jumped over the school’s fence and robbed trainee medical students of their possessions.
Expressing their grievances to Mbombo through a song on Tuesday, the midwives said not only were they facing safety challenges, the environment they worked in was characterised by staff shortages, poor facilities and overcrowding which “is getting us down and this needs to be addressed”.
Mbombo acknowledged their unhappiness, citing that security was a challenge that not only faced healthcare workers, but communities at large.
“It is a huge problem across all communities… other clinics are facing similar challenges. Schools are also not safe. While we are doing everything in our power to secure the clinic, the challenge is the positioning of the facility… as it is located in a crime hotspot. Unfortunately what happens outside also impacts on the clinic,” she said.
She called for the strengthening of community resolve, saying safety within the clinic premises could only be improved when communities “took ownership and were active in crime fighting”.
Plans were also afoot to relocate the clinic and build a modern structure with proper space that would allow a smooth patient flow and accommodate different needs that were currently offered on a piecemeal basis.
Mbombo said that while the new facility had been budgeted for, the challenge was finding a new site.
She expressed concern that healthcare workers in the province worked in unsafe conditions, saying this shouldn’t be so as they played an invaluable role in society, including reducing child and maternal mortality in the Western Cape.
New head of the department Dr Beth Engelbrecht was working on a strategy aimed at increasing police visibility at the existing clinic.
Cape Argus