It is a war of the political parties as ActionSA takes on the ANC-run City of Johannesburg (CoJ) with regard to the extended operating hours of government clinics.
President of ActionSA, and former CoJ mayor, Herman Mashaba, visited Princess Clinic on Tuesday, 9 March to investigate reports he received just over a week prior that the extended operating hours for clinics, that he had worked to secure during his time as mayor, had been reduced. “This came as a surprise to me, as under the current pandemic there is a need for 24-hour service, not just extended hours. So I thought to myself I should find out if this is true, and Princess Clinic would be the best place to start,” said Mashaba.
He stated that Princess Clinic was ground zero for the extended clinic hours pilot project and was funded with money that had initially been allocated for international travel for the office of the outgoing mayor, Parks Tau. The extended hours allowed for sick residents to visit clinics over weekends or during the evenings, allowing for more patients to be treated as well as helping to ensure that those with jobs did not need to miss out on an income by taking time off work. “Reports from the City’s Health Department revealed that over 300 000 patients were treated after hours, and 522 life-saving emergency situations received treatment,” he continued.
He continued by saying that the coronavirus can also not be used as an excuse, because even though we are now on Level 1, the clinic hours were extended before the virus took over. Mashaba further expressed his frustration by saying that the City has been silent on measures taken throughout the pandemic. “Other than its own apparent procurement controversies, it is difficult to pinpoint a valuable contribution it has made to saving the lives of residents. This is bad enough as it is. However, to begin reversing the extended hours of operation for City Clinics when so many have needed life-saving treatment is evil,” he remarked.
Innocent Mbi is one of the many residents who utilises the Princess clinic for his family’s health requirements. Speaking to the Record, he said that he brings in his family at least three times a month as his wife and her parents need to regularly get their blood pressure and sugar tested. He was unaware of the alleged change of hours, but said if it is true, he does not see the reasoning behind it. “What happens if there is an emergency? Where are people expected to go? Emergencies don’t just happen before 5pm,” he stated.
Another resident, who preferred to remain anonymous said that she has stopped using Princess Clinic all together. She claimed that slow service often prevented her from being seen before the clinic closed, so she has had to resort to using private doctors and paying the fees they charge.
Responding to Mashaba’s site visit, the MMC for Health and Social Development, Eunice Mgcina, said CoJ refuted Mashaba’s claims and dismissed them as incorrect. She said there had been no decision to cut the operating hours at any of its primary healthcare facilities and that the Princess Clinic hours were reduced from 10pm to 7pm in May 2019, when Mashaba was still mayor. However, Mashaba’s visit seemed to be the first he had heard of the change in service hours, and upon his investigations, he discovered that the clinic actually closed at 5pm and was no longer open on Saturdays.
Contradicting her earlier remarks that the City has not made a decision to cut back service hours in clinics, the MMC stated that the operating hours for nine clinics had been adjusted since the onset of the pandemic in April 2020 in order to mitigate the foreseen impact of the virus on clinic staff in primary healthcare facilities. She did not mention to which clinics the reduced hours applied.
Mgcina said the City would not make decisions that would compromise service delivery and put the lives of its residents in danger, and they have set aside a budget of R92 million to improve a range of services in the Health Department, including the extended operating hours of clinics. “The City welcomes any further suggestions and engagements in this regard, and we will do everything in our power to find amicable solutions where there is a need to do so,” the MMC concluded.
Mashaba concluded his statement by saying that he sadly believed that no amount of public outcry would get the ANC-led municipalities, like CoJ, to start delivery and stop corruption, and his party had therefore made it their mission to remove the ruling party from local government later this year.
With two very different stories being told, it seems the question residents should be asking themselves is, “Who do I believe?”
