EFF STATEMENT ON THE STATE OF PUBLIC HEALTHCARE
Wednesday, June 6, 2018
The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) reiterates that Public Healthcare in South Africa is in crisis. This is why we have dedicated 2018 as the Year of Public Healthcare. As a result we have mobilized such that everyone is focused on the date of public healthcare this year. This is because our people essentially go to public hospitals to die, instead of getting healthcare. Even old people who ordinarily should trust this government, perceive healthcare as a state of death.
The EFF is utterly shocked at Motsoaledi’s denialism of this reality, and this, will lead to the death of many citizens. At this rate, he will very soon assume a title of Dr. Death because of his denialism. You can never solve problems if you keep denying it’s intensity and severity as Motsoaledi does.
For some time now, he keeps blaming provincial powers and jurisdiction for failure of his intervention to fix the public healthcare. If Motsoaledi thinks centralizing power is a solution, by now, he should have already proposed the necessary legislative changes. To this day, he has not, because in reality, he is not genuine and not committed to the upliftment of the system.
As a country we have reached a point where we cannot speak in fork tongues anymore; Motsoaledi has presided over the worst healthcare collapse since the dawn of democracy. He is, we repeat, a possible, plausible, new dawn Dr. Death, even as a favorite of the media.
The crisis at Charlotte Maxeke Hospital was looming and comes as no surprise because the condition of the Healthcare System has been in shambles for quite some time now. The ambulances in KwaZulu-Natal and in Limpopo are not working, if they are the service is poor. In the Eastern Cape, Gauteng and North West there have been numerous reports on the shortage of beds, poor medicine supply or a total shortage thereof, long queues and rude staff; that humiliates and condemns our people to indignity. Patient’s rights are not respected and their safety is not even a consideration in many hospitals.
There are high levels of corruption in the health department, public health institutions have no basic facilities, and buildings are collapsing, machines are broken. There is a shortage of doctors and nurses, and community health workers and lay HIV counsellors earn R2‚500 a month. The maladministration and mismanagement of funds is deplorable.
South Africa should know that the only solution is to remove the corrupt ANC government from power. Our hope lies in a new government that respects the constitutional right of all our people to life. This is because a collapsed public healthcare is condemnation of people to death.
Statement issued by the Economic Freedom Fighters, 6 June 2018
