Pretoria – The SA Medical Association (Sama) has decried the treatment of patients at the Rahima Moosa hospital, a public health facility in Johannesburg, after a video went viral on social media platforms showing crowds of pregnant women crammed on the facility’s floor, requiring medical attention.
Reacting to the social media backlash, City of Joburg’s MMC for Health and Social Development, Ashley Sauls, said the hospital is burdened by undocumented migrants, who often live far away.
Got news at 00:30 that pregnant women at Rahima Moosa hospital are sleeping on the floor for up to 3 days, I went there immediately and sadly found it to be true. We cannot allow this to continue 😠😠😠we must restore the HEART of service pic.twitter.com/bWrwhyqa3w
— Ashley Sauls I (@MMC_Sauls1st) April 1, 2022
On Monday, Sama chairperson Dr Mvuyisi Mzukwa said hospitals in South Africa cannot be expected to treat patients based on nationalities.
“Government cannot expect clinicians to be chasing away foreign nationals. It is not our domain. All we do as clinicians, if we see a patient who needs medical attention in a hospital premises, we just offer that service without asking any questions. We are not the Department of Home Affairs,” Mzukwa told IOL.
“We do not deal with immigration or whatever. We do not even want to know whether a patient is an asylum seeker or whatever. Once you are in hospital premises and you are sick, all we do is to give you medical attention.”
Mzukwa said the issues of immigration and the influx of undocumented immigrants clogging the system at public health facilities is not for hospitals to fix, but for the government to engage the nations where the people are coming from.
“They need to talk with SADC and have a conversation to say we have our facilities being flooded by foreign nationals, or people from your country. What sort of arrangement can we make, can we share resources, and if we have your people, can we share information, for example to show how many Zimbabweans were seen (at the South African hospitals),” said Mzukwa.
“You cannot use the excuse that your system is flooded so people can just lie on the floor like that, regardless of where they come from.”
He said even though lying on the floor may not put the unborn children in danger, the situation seen at the Rahima Moosa hospital was “inhumane”.
“Nobody deserves to be treated in that inhumane way. We always encourage patients to complain if such things happen to them. Nobody wants their wife, or sister, or relative to be treated like that. Government needs to change the way it treats people, not to come with excuses and say that is because the system is flooded by foreigners. That is not a new thing,” said Mzukwa.
“Once people are in an institution, they need to be treated with dignity, and that is all we are saying.”
On Monday morning, Gauteng Health MEC Dr Nomathemba Mokgethi was reportedly visiting the facility after the video of the pregnant women went viral and sparked outrage.
The Gauteng Department of Health declined to comment on the MEC’s visit to the embattled hospital.
IOL