4 November 2024
Patients in this village near Flagstaff have to walk more than three hours to a health facility. Photo: Yamkela Ntshongwana
Patients in Sicweza village just outside Flagstaff have to leave home before dawn to walk three hours to the nearest health facility.
This village along with two other remote ones, Khimbili and Manquzu, are meant to be serviced by a mobile clinic every week. But there are currently only two mobile clinics available in the Ingquza Hill Local Municipality, and patients say it only visits their area every two months.
People have to walk three hours to the nearest clinic in Manyengele and have to cross overgrown bush and a river that swells in the rainy season.
Ward councillor Bongani Nokhela told GroundUp that they have applied for a local clinic to be built, but authorities say a proper road needs to be built first.
He said the municipality recently told the communities the plan to build a road but did not say when this would happen.
Sicweza resident Thembi Gwexe, who has an eight-month-old baby, said on many occasions mothers who wanted to vaccinate their babies were turned away by the mobile clinic due to lack of medication.
Gwexe said that is why they go to Manyengele clinic which is far from their village. She usually takes her baby and elderly grandmother and walks with other residents to the clinic. They have to leave at 4am to make it in time to join the queue so they can be helped for the day. “We always go in groups, if you are sick, you must make sure that there are other people going. The area is very dangerous and there’s a river that we have to cross,” said Gwexe.
Another resident Asiphe Gxabhu said using a taxi to get to the clinic costs a lot of money which many villagers who rely on social grants can’t afford.
Eastern Cape Department of Health spokesperson Mkhululi Ndamase denied that residents of Sicwenza village only get serviced by the mobile clinic every two months. He confirmed the community has submitted an application for a new clinic but said that this wouldn’t be possible in the immediate future due to budgetary constraints.
There are about 20 clinics and one community health centre under Ingquza Hill municipality, he said. He said the two mobile clinics were adequately staffed and offered the same services as a fixed structure clinic. He agreed that the mobile clinic last visited the area on 26 September.