‘Our nurses live in fear in clinics’

An impassioned plea has been made to communities in Nelson Mandela Bay to help officials safeguard health facilities which, in some areas, have become places where staff work in fear of criminals.

Clinics in Helenvale, Kwazakhele and Soweto-on-Sea were singled out at a safety and security indaba held at the Kwazakhele community centre on Monday.

The health department said various incidents of violence had left staff feeling frightened and demotivated to work at certain facilities.

The department said the aim of the indaba was to raise awareness of the safety issues at health facilities.

It was also to seek community participation and collaboration in combating crime at the facilities.

“We are living in fear,” acting health department district manager Sindiswa Gede said.

“Our nurses are living in constant fear in the clinics, there’s high crime, there are burglaries happening every day [and] we are losing computers and equipment.

“They [criminals] are damaging everything.

“They even go to the mortuaries where we dissect people and steal very expensive equipment – they removed copper.”

Gede described Helenvale as a very rough area for healthcare workers.

“It is where gangsters fight right in front of the nurses. We really live in fear.

“If you look next to the Helenvale clinic, there’s a big post office that has now long been closed because of the gangsterism. So the nurses are not safe and we’ve noticed that people are traumatised and seeing psychiatrists and psychologists because we live in fear.”

Gede said there had also been gang-related incidents reported at the clinics in Kwazakhele and Soweto-on-Sea.

“The area of Kwazakhele is also inundated with crime, so much so that medicine deliveries to facilities have to be escorted by police,” she said.

“We recently lost more than a million medicines when the gangsters attacked our truck that was delivering medicines to the area.

“And you can imagine when there is no medicine stock what happens – people default on their treatment and will suffer complications and get more sick.”

She said she was also recently alerted to an incident in Soweto-on-Sea where an alleged gangster was injured.

“They [alleged fellow gangsters] forced the nurse to treat the one who was injured whereas the nurse wanted to refer the gangster to Dora Nginza [hospital].

“That gangster terrorised the nurses that he would kill them in the clinic.”

She said the department was considering moving clinics situated in hotspot areas.

“I know our head office is in support of moving some clinics, including Helenvale, to the nearest community centre.

“We will erect park homes where the clinic can operate.”

Mayoral committee member for safety and security Litho Suka called on the community to play a bigger role in protecting clinics.

“Crime will surely escalate in the absence of community involvement and criminals will take charge, so our communities must be involved.

“A partnership that is structured is needed in our communities,” Suka said.

Yolisa Pali, political head of public health in the metro, said: “What is important is to consult communities and sit down with residents, because remember, those clinics belong to the communities, they service communities.

“So, I think it’s high time that we go back to basics where we call community meetings and explain the situation to them so that the community themselves can protect the staff and also the clinics.”

Finance and supply management director in the Bay district health department Siyanda Macingwana said criminal activity was negatively affecting the department’s bottom line.

“We are not going forward, we are not being developmental [because] we are reacting to all these criminal activities in facilities and playing catch-up.

“It really is a wasteful expenditure. It does not allow us to progress and bring in innovations.

“In New Brighton, we had three break-ins in just one month which cost us half a million [rand] just on repairs,” Macingwana said.

‘It is where gangsters fight right in front of the nurses’ Sindiswa Gede ACTING HEALTH DISTRICT MANAGER