SANDF’S ‘sick’ training camps defy lockdown
Despite Covid-19 regulations and increases in infections, the army has continued some training courses, putting hundreds of students’ lives at risk
The South African National Defence Force (SANDF) was going ahead with training courses at its different bases despite at least six students having died of Covid-19-related complications.
After the Mail & Guardian posed questions regarding the dire situation at training units, the Military Command Council this week issued an internal communiqué instructing all training institutions to cease or suspend all current and scheduled courses until further notice.
This seems to have, in turn, prompted some of the very same units to bring forward some of the field exercises that were initially scheduled to take place later. Frightened and frustrated students and instructors alike told the M&G that they had families at home, and that many were the sole providers.
“If anything were to happen to me, I have an extended family and my children who will be left without any source of income,” one of the students in Potchefstroom said on Tuesday morning.
According to SANDF spokesperson Brigadier General Mafi Mgobozi, the increasing numbers of infections at training institutions compelled the surgeon general of the South African Military Health Service, Lieutenant General Zola Dabula, to dispatch a team of medical practitioners to the institutions to assess adherence to protocols and health guidelines.
This was despite warnings from the SANDF’S own health practitioners on the ground in the build-up of the current third wave that some of the units do not have the resources to cope with a full-blown superspreader situation.
Last week, the Defence Force said in an internal bulletin that functional courses were cancelled with immediate effect, but that developmental and residential courses would continue to go ahead.
“Bases and units should ensure that where possible, all gatherings including governance meetings, workshops and conferences are held virtually. Residential courses currently running must continue following Covid19 protocols. When there are extreme alarming cases during the course, the course must be cancelled immediately,” the bulletin reads.
According to reports from students attending courses all over the country, they are being endangered by protocols not being followed, or being implemented too rigidly or too haphazardly, and by the lack of sanitising liquid, masks and other items of personal protective equipment.
The students say they are forced to live in close proximity to one another in tents, bungalows and in rooms among infected students, and that this is contributing to the infection rates going up.
At 3 South African Infantry Battalion in Kimberley, three soldiers on course died of Covid-19related illnesses at 3 Military Hospital in Bloemfontein late in June. All were on the same junior leaders’ course.
A video, which the M&G has seen, shows students having a rowdy dance party with at least 30 squeezed into a bungalow. Judging by the video, none of the instructing staff at the unit intervened.
At the Infantry School in Oudtshoorn in the Western Cape, several courses are still proceeding, despite the region reporting 120 Covid infections, of which 96 were defence force members, a member of the SA Military Health Services told the M&G.
At this school, more than 1200 students are housed in 10 tents. According to students, conditions there are unhygienic and shabby. Only six of the 20 toilets are working. Some are piled full of rocks and others are broken. There are only 28 showers for the whole group, which includes 165 women.
Sources at the training facility told the M&G that everybody on the course was put in isolation after Covid-19 cases started steadily increasing. Students who had tested positive were bundled together in tents that stood slightly away from the rest, but everybody still used the same ablution facilities.
Those awaiting their Covid-19 test results remained among the healthy students and were only isolated once they received positive test results. A number among the infected group are now seriously ill in hospital.
According to both students and staff members who spoke to the M&G on condition of anonymity, the soldiers are receiving “inhumane” treatment.
Most of the group are Reserve Force members, who are only called up for duty for certain periods of time, such as to do border protection duties or as part of UN interventions in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Being isolated, the soldiers said, meant that they could not send money to their families or buy airtime and data.
Female soldiers have no access to sanitary pads or tampons and have told the M&G that they have resorted to using toilet paper, which is chronically in short supply, when they menstruate.
Meals are served in the open with 1 200 soldiers lining up for food. When they have lectures up to 450 people are crammed into a hall and do not observe social distancing directives.
Medical staff in Oudtshoorn, in particular, are stretched beyond their limits. Since the weekend, the sickbay’s pharmacist, as well as other medical staff, have tested positive.
The Defence Force units are not allowed internet access to send and receive emails because it is considered a possible security breach. However, laboratories handling Covid-19 tests only use emails to send results. Only the most senior officer has access to the computer mainframe, but not his juniors who are treating patients.
At the Infantry School sickbay, medical staff say they use their own laptop computers and data to handle the students’ bookings and tests.
“This can severely compromise treatment. I believe this lack of access to patient medical data has been communicated to superiors on numerous occasions. It is also in contravention of the Health Professions Council of South Africa’s ethical code,” said one of the frustrated staff members.
“It feels as if none of the generals really knows or cares what the situation on the ground level is. We just have to make do and create miracles while people’s lives are at stake,” one frustrated staff member said.
A‘It feels as if none of the generals really knows or cares what the situation on the ground is […] people’s lives are at stake’
t the Army Gymnasium in Heidelberg, one senior student on the noncommissioned officers’ course has died of Covid-19 after being admitted to hospital on 26 June. He died the next day. Some 180 soldiers are attending the course, while the 170 soldiers on the officers’ forming course recently concluded theirs with a party, despite restrictions on gatherings being in place for the rest of the country.
Everyone on the current course is supposed to be in isolation due to the fatality, and while the unit’s headquarters were closed last week, the course continued. Until the M&G enquired, the mess pub was open to “takeaways” every night with those in “isolation” freely roaming outside the supposedly restricted bungalows. Only two nurses and one intern provided medical care as the unit’s doctor was also at home with Covid-19.
The War College in Pretoria has 78 students on course and one officer had died from the virus. None of the students is allowed contact with family or anyone outside the college, but the instructing staff, cleaners and other staff members go home every night, despite being in a hall with the students during the day.
The Military Academy in Saldanha is thus far the only one that uses the University of Stellenbosch’s computer system, where the students study online and the lecturers remain at home.
Despite severe shortages of medical personnel and doctors, the SANDF agreed to provide 280 of its medical personnel to help in Gauteng’s Covid-19 fight, with the first group expected to start soon at the Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital in Soweto.
The Defence Force is only starting its own vaccination programme on 8 July. According to yet another bulletin issued this week, the roll-out will prioritise health workers, then course members and then soldiers who are due for deployments.
The rest of the 70 000 soldiers will only receive their jabs after the priority groups at 16 identified sites countrywide.