MBOMBELA – The Department of Health has reiterated that it will not decrease the operation hours of the Nelsville and Valencia clinics as of today, September 1, but has not taken the plan off the table, despite vehement opposition from the community.
Representatives from the provincial department, which runs the clinics, addressed the community in the Nelsville Hall on Thursday night.
The delegation was led by Mr Ishmael Mtungwa, director of primary health care in the department, who was surprised to be meeting with the community instead of the clinic committee.
Yet he admitted he was aware that the clinic didn’t have a committee at the moment, as the nominated one had not been approved by the department, since Nelsville and Valencia, satellites of the Bell Street Clinic in the Mbombela CBD, were supposed to elect a joint committee.
Ms Mary Schatz, a community representative who found out about the proposed decrease in hours by accident last week, was furious.
“They asked for a meeting with the community, now that they see us they want the committee they know nothing about.”
All the same, Mtungwa said as administrators they were not really supposed to deal with the community directly.
The meeting continued and those in attendance were mostly genuinely interested in what the department had to say. It had planned to decrease the hours of operation at both Nelsville and Valencia from eight hours per day, five days a week, to eight hours a day, two days a week, mostly to better utilise staff. But those affected are deeply unhappy.
Ms Betty Mandlazi of Betty’s Haven orphanage says she has 34 children in her care and no transport.
“This clinic cannot close. Then where must I take the children when they get sick?”
Ward councillor, Ms Sanley van der Merwe, pointed out that Bell Street was understaffed itself.
Spokesman for the department, Mr Dumisani Malamule, said there were two doctors employed at the clinic. Currently one is on annual leave and the other on incapacity leave.
“Plans to deploy a doctor are in the final stages. In the meantime, arrangements have been made with Rob Ferreira to give the patients referred by the clinic special attention.”
One elderly man told Lowvelder how he had tried to have the prescription for his chronic medication renewed there last week, but there was no doctor on duty. He turned back, because he couldn’t afford to travel the additional distance to Rob Ferreira. It costs R40 by metered taxi to travel from Nelsville to Bell Street only.
Malamule insisted that Bell Street Clinic had an operational telephone, but Valencia and Nelsville did not as they were located inside a municipal building and the sisters were provided with airtime for their cellphones for emergencies.
Van der Merwe is to meet with the department again this week. She hopes to get a combined committee elected. In the meantime the department will not yet decrease operations at the satellites.
Mtungwa was left apologising for creating the expectation that both satellites could operate full-time. “Let us test the waters. We are looking at utilisation here.”
