Cape Town - Community members and health care workers in Ceres have embarked on a strike outside Bella Vista clinic over poor health care services.
The protesters say that they have had enough of long queues and unavailability of medication and not having their complaints not attended to by the government.
They say that patients sometimes have to queue for days at their clinics, and there have been cases of alleged assaults at the clinics and the Ceres hospital.
In an interview with eNCA, Judy Mabula, an epileptic patient, recounted her traumatic experience last year. She was allegedly assaulted by security guards at Ceres hospital whilst having an epileptic seizure.
“On the 7th August, I was very sick and rushed to hospital. I was not helped when I got there, and I was badly treated. The security at Ceres hospital assaulted me. Every time I am sick, I am reminded of the incident. I am very traumatised,” she said.
Ward Councillor Karriem Adams says that he has tried in vain to speak to the management at the clinic but has been met with a “cold shoulder”.
“As a councillor, I have a community to protect, the community put a complaint at my office, and I have to attend to it. Whenever I attend to these issues, they give me the cold shoulder. I even spoke to the manager, and she then told me that they are just following policy. Today they could not provide us with what the policy entails.”
“I even spoke to the MEC for health, Nomafrench (Mbombo), she just said that I have to follow it up with the local facilities at the hospital. That also was in vain,” said Adams.
Adams says that these issues have been reported for the past ten years, with little to no relief for the community.
“These issues have been coming on for the past ten years and to no avail. There is enough staff, just that they do not get implemented. We have enough doctors, local students that passed long ago as doctors, and professional doctors. They do not get employed here,” he said.
IOL