EFF threatens to shut down Tembisa Hospital

The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) has vowed to shut down Tembisa Hospital.

They have also called for the immediate resignation of the hospital’s CEO, Lekopane Mogaladi, and his nursing director, Wilfred Mothoane, whom they accused of sexually harassing nurses in the hospital.

Hundreds of EFF members, joined by their regional leadership, marched to the Tembisa Hospital last Friday, where they handed over a memorandum with a list of their demands.

This march was triggered by the recent death of 10 babies at this hospital due to the outbreak of carbapenem-resistant enterobacteriaceae (CRE).

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“Today, we are engaging with the hospital’s management in a peaceful manner and we are giving them seven working days to come back to us with answers. Failure to respond will lead to total shutdown. The next time we come here, I promise we will not be as tolerable and peaceful as we are today,” said EFF’s local leader, Samson Sebatha.

“The entire community of Tembisa and the workers of Tembisa Hospital have been observing how the hospital is being operated and we will not fold our hands anymore while the hospital is on the brink of collapsing because of poor management. This hospital is the only hope for the poor masses of our people in Tembisa. The nursing director, Wilfred Mothoane, is continuously assaulting nurses sexually, while the CEO, Lekopane Mogaladi, is doing absolutely nothing even though cases are reported to him,” said another EFF community leader, Phindile Nkosi, as she handed the memorandum to the hospital’s deputy director, Thokozani Langa.

The EFF also accused the hospital of nepotism and corruption. Furthermore, they pointed out the lack of decent infrastructure, overcrowding and poor treatment of patients by health-care workers as the cause of the people dying here.

“It’s sad, but this hospital has the highest number of people dying than any other. And this is the reason why we have come to refer to this hospital as The Morgue. Once you come here, you will never come out alive. If the situation doesn’t change here, we will shut down the hospital,” said Sebatha.

Accepting the memorandum on behalf of the hospital and the department, Langa said they will thoroughly review it and engage with the EFF leaders on some of their deliberations.

“We will try by all means to come back to your leaders within the stipulated period,” he said.

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