Tsholomnqa villagers in struggle to reach clinics

WHILE the Eastern Cape department of health is trying to strengthen its primary healthcare, residents of Tsholomnqa villages struggle to access clinics as they are forced to walk long distances for basic healthcare.

Community members say they have been trying without any success to get the department to send mobile clinics to the different villages including Tsaba and New Rest.

Tsaba community leader, Bonisile Dyani, said the people who are suffering the most are the elderly because they could not walk long distances.

“Some of our elders in our village have had to resort to asking people to cart them in wheelbarrows so they can get to the clinic in another village.

“There was a mobile clinic that used to come here but it stopped abruptly,” he said.

Dyani added that he, together with other community representatives, had visited several department of health offices trying to resolve the matter.

“We went to West Bank and we went to Vincent and the health employees showed us broken down vehicles, saying the vehicles needed repairs,” Dyani added.

Provincial health spokesman Sizwe Kupelo yesterday confirmed that Tsaba residents were without a mobile clinic.

“There was a meeting with the community to address this issue and solutions are being sought.

“There was a vehicle allocated to that community but it broke down. The last time the vehicle went there was in January,” Kupelo said.

New Rest resident Mazikwana Matyumza said: “People cannot afford to hire cars to take them to the clinic because most of them are elderly. They also cannot walk long distance because of old age.”

Matyumza said New Rest villagers were desperate and needed the department of health to act fast.

A department of health employee, who asked to remain anonymous, said the department’s failure to provide mobile clinics was detrimental to the health of community members.

“When the mobile clinic does not go to those areas, people just sit at home and their conditions get worse. Children also miss immunisation because their grandparents cannot walk to take them to the clinic,” he said. —