Should we not be looking after our own citizens first?

SA is a very interesting country. No day goes by without some controversy or major talking point. Something happens or someone important says something and the whole country goes into a frenzy and that trends for a couple of weeks.

This week it is the turn of the Limpopo MEC for health, Dr Poppy Ramathuba, who was filmed berating a sick Zimbabwean immigrant at a hospital she was visiting. This is what she said: “You are killing my health system.

“When you guys are sick you say, Let’s cross the Limpopo river, there’ sa MEC there who is running a charity department.”

She prefaced this by saying: ”Mnagagwa doesn’t pay the province for health services rendered to Zimbabwean nationals.”

Some people who might see themselves as “enlightened” had a fit after they saw this and accused Ramathuba of a lot of things.

They accused her of lacking compassion and some conceded that what she was saying was the truth, but it was said to the wrong person and in the wrong setting. Even the party with 10% of the vote, the EFF, which advocates open borders, called for her to resign or be fired for her comments.

What is your take on this issue? Do you agree with her that we should not allow our health system to be overwhelmed by non-paying and illegal patients? Should we be compassionate, rather, and allow all-comers to clog our health system to the detriment of our poor citizens who only use the public health system?

Must we make them compete for the meagre health resources with illegal foreigners?

When people talk about Ubuntu and appeal to our sense of humanity and compassion, does this also apply to poor and sick South Africans?

The Limpopo health spokesperson said the MEC had done research and found that of the 4,000 case backlog for operations, many of the recipients were illegal foreign nationals.

In simple terms, it means there are fewer poor South Africans being treated with life-saving procedures because of the uncontrolled movement of people from other countries into Limpopo.

So when people with medical aid, living far away from where the poor people live, start talking about compassion and xenophobia, I find myself very disturbed.

Where is this compassion for the thousands of South Africans who are poor who have to wait for a few months longer for an operation because an illegal foreigner has inserted themselves into the list? Who is speaking up for the poor black elderly person who cannot get the lifesaving treatment in her own country because of our misplaced sense of justice and compassion?

Ramathuba, like Aaron Motsoaledi, is someone we should be listening to and try to support. They are doing what any elected official should be doing – enforcing the law and protecting and serving the citizens of the country.

People with medical aid and money should sit this one out because they will never experience what poor South Africans face every day when they have to seek medical treatment from public health centres.

Putting SA first is not being xenophobic – no other country (including Zimbabwe) would allow this to happen, so why should we?