In June 2023 President Cyril Ramaphosa visited Hammanskraal, just north of Pretoria, where at least 23 people had died of cholera due to lack of clean running water in the area. He visited various sites and ended up at the local stadium where he received rapturous applause. When he referred to the local Jubilee Hospital and said the facility was handling the cholera outbreak, the crowd booed. They started shouting “mortuary, mortuary”, referring to the widely held belief in the area that if you find yourself at the facility, you will die.
Last week a friend’s brother found himself admitted to the hospital. For three days after he was admitted, there were no beds for him and other patients. He slept in his upright, office-type chair, fed by his relatives.
Over the past few days, a 2022 video clip of a ward at Tembisa Hospital in the East Rand, depicting horrific scenes, went viral on social media. It showed patients lying on a dirty floor, equipment scattered about, other patients lying on unmade beds and moaning in pain, while one is being fed by a relative. The person recording speaks of their disgust while others join in.
A year ago, North West province health MEC Madoda Sambatha vowed to send additional cribs to Mahikeng Provincial Hospital after photos of newborn babies sleeping in cardboard boxes at the facility were posted on social media.
The story of the collapse of the public healthcare system, virtually everywhere in SA except for the Western Cape, where facilities continue to be exceptional, is well known. We no longer speak of the atrocious state of facilities such as Charlotte Maxeke, Rahima Moosa, Chris Hani Baragwanath. These institutions were renamed after heroes of our struggle only to be left to decay into insults to their memories.
We have not seen any demonstration that this government can deliver and run a health facility of any significance in a manner that matches the private healthcare sector.
It was with these thoughts in mind that I read of yet another one of our political leaders, North West premier Bushy Maape, setting off last week for medical treatment in Thailand. He follows in the footsteps of Jacob Zuma, DD Mabuza, Robert Mugabe and a plethora of African leaders who have run down their public facilities only to rush off and get their treatment elsewhere in the world. Maape, like Zuma and Mabuza before him, does not think that our public facilities are good enough for him, but they are good enough for the people he leads.
It cannot be emphasised enough just how odious, misguided, erroneous and morally corrupt the visit of Maape to a hospital in Thailand is. It cannot be emphasised enough just how unacceptable this trend, started by Zuma in our political space, is. Nelson Mandela, bless his soul, always took his medical treatment in our country.
One’s actions reflect one’s character, and the actions by Maape and Zuma before him illustrate exactly what is wrong with our polity: the masses are nothing but voting fodder. After the elections, these “leaders” don’t give a hoot about them.
There is a bigger danger to these shenanigans which will bite South Africans in the bum in the next 10 years. It is this: the ANC has rushed the NHI Bill through parliament so that the party can go on the election trail and boast that it is bringing “free health care” to the masses. It was in such a rush to get the bill through the National Council of Provinces that it reportedly did not even institute technical changes to the document as recommended by the department of health.
After 16 years of the ANC talking about an NHI scheme, there are still no clear figures about how much this will cost, who will pay for it and how it will be implemented. At the current calculations, the costings of this plan will bankrupt South Africa.
Worse, we have not seen any demonstration that this government can deliver and run a health facility of any significance in a manner that matches the private healthcare sector. What we are headed towards is a system whereby the ANC, after having run our public health facilities into the ground, will now get its claws into the private healthcare sector. At hospitals like Steve Biko and George Mkhari in Tshwane, patients have been known to wait in queues for medication from 4am until 4pm. Tell me that you can trust a party that for 30 years has failed to start, nurture, and build world-class healthcare to improve, and I will show you Jubilee Hospital.
Health facilities are not like Eskom. We do not see their brokenness until we must use them. For the middle classes with private medical aid, it might not seem such an urgent problem.
Yet it is. Soon, and very soon, the dysfunction of public hospitals will be transferred to the private healthcare sector, and you, dear reader, will be sleeping on the floor at your local hospital while Bushy Maape and Jacob Zuma enjoy a bed overseas. Stop this mess.
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