Health care in urgent need of repairs
4 March 2020
The Democratic Alliance (DA) in the Northern Cape is concerned that health care is taking a serious knock due to the Health Department’s failure to effect basic repairs to mobile trucks required to deliver services to sick people, especially those in more remote areas of the province.
Following an oversight inspection to the mobile clinic at Windsorton Station by Magareng Councillor, Willem Potgieter, the DA has learned that a mobile clinic from Barkley West, that used to service the Windsorton Station area, broke down over a year ago. The vehicle was taken to Kimberley for repairs, which have yet to materialize. The sister who manned the mobile clinic was meanwhile relocated to Upington and has yet to be replaced, resulting in complete discontinuation of health services on the southern side of Barkley West, which includes the communities of Romance, Pniel and Stillwater, amongst others.
In effect, residents from the Station have to attend the permanent clinic situated in Windsorton, between 10 and 14 kilometers from the Station. This has resulted in many challenges concerning transport for residents, most of whom are either pensioners or unemployed.
Since the first mobile truck broke, the second mobile clinic that operates from Barkley West, and serves the northern route, has also broken down. It was also sent to Kimberley and has not been repaired to date. The mobile clinic has, for the time being, been replaced with a normal van.
Communities in the surrounding areas have been negatively affected by the situation, as it has made access to health care so much more difficult and expensive. As a result, these patients cannot afford transport costs and they are sitting at home without chronic medication, such as blood pressure pills. This is detrimental to their wellbeing.
It cannot be that the department’s failure to ensure speedy repair of mobile clinics, as well as other vehicles like ambulances, has become a stumbling block to the provision of quality health care for all.
The DA is calling on Health MEC MaseManopole to urgently give attention to this matter and ensure that health services are reinstated on both the southern and northern routes of Barkley West.
Issued by Isak Fritz,DA Northern Cape Spokesperson of Health, 4 March 2020
