The Eastern Cape health department is starting to feel the heat as a result of the public service strike action, it said on Wednesday.
The army had been deployed in Port Elizabeth and East London and would move into the Transkei on Thursday, spokesman Sizwe Kupelo said.
Kupelo said there was a serious problem in the Transkei.
A man was stabbed and strikers broke down hospital doors in Mthatha, where cars were also damaged and hospital staff assaulted, he said.
To avoid police, the strikers went into hospitals pretending to be visitors or patients. Once inside wards, they start threatening staff, Kupelo said.
He said it was not necessarily hospital staff who were committing these violent acts, but strikers from a number of different unions who were targeting health institutes.
The department was appealing to strikers to end the strike and violence.
"It is important to put the lives of people first, said Kupelo.
"This has become anarchy. We are losing people."
He said the health department was going to engage with traditional leaders in the area to assist in getting volunteers to help at hospitals. - Sapa