The feuding clinical manager and chief executive of Zithulele Hospital, near Mthatha, were transferred on Thursday. (Simon Le Roux/Twitter)
Police fired teargas and rubber bullets at about 250 protesters outside the award-winning Zithulele Hospital near Mthatha on Thursday afternoon as a long-standing feud between clinicians and a new nurse chief executive erupted into violence.
According to local doctors, at least seven protesters were injured.
Clinical manager Dr Ben Gaunt, who recently resigned, said the protest, one of several over the past few weeks calling for the resignation of new chief executive Nolubabalo Fatyela, began on Thursday morning and was peaceful until about 15 police officers arrived in a Casspir, mini-bus and two “patrol” vehicles several hours later.
“Without any warning they began firing teargas and rubber bullets. One protester was hit in the eye by a rubber bullet, my 16-year-old daughter was hit on the foot by a rubber bullet and myself and my other 14-year-old child were nearly overcome by teargas. We’d just come out of our house after hearing shots,” said Gaunt.
He said he was shoved by a policeman who confronted him for filming the violence and protesters were hit in the head and arm by rubber bullets and another was allegedly slapped by a hospital board member.
Dr Karl le Roux, who has been working at Zithulele for 15 years, described the police action as “unprovoked, strange, unnecessary and inflammatory”.
He said he treated a man bleeding profusely from a head wound, while others were treated for burns, a serious eye wound and arm wounds, all inflicted by rubber bullets.
Asked for comment, a senior policeman who confirmed he was part of the police contingent at Zithulele Hospital but declined to give his name, said: “You can rather ask the doctors what happened. The crowd was toyi toyi-ing and blocking the road.”
The doctors denied this. The policeman referred further questions to the Mthatha police communications officer, whose number he was unable to provide.
Fatyela, who doctors said was escorted from her house with a police vehicle driving in front and another behind her car, said on Thursday evening: “I was in my office when this all happened. I’m very far from being harmed. I cannot speak to you. I’m very disciplined. I respect my company and my government, so you’ll hear nothing from me. There is a proper spokesman for this hospital whose number I can give you during working hours.”
Zithulele is situated on the coast about 100km from Mthatha and is arguably the country’s most successful rural hospital, having won several prestigious awards for its holistic healthcare delivery. But it is now facing implosion and multiple pending resignations by doctors after Fatyela’s arrival last October.
She has reportedly made wide-ranging changes, discharging patients to clinics against the advice of her clinicians and accusing them of benefiting financially from several NGOs they have set up over the past 17 years.
The feud turned toxic despite a meeting with provincial officials and local stakeholders, after which Gaunt, Le Roux and their wives, also doctors, handed in their notice. Most of the 10 remaining doctors have signalled their intention to follow suit.
Some of the context behind the row is a R890-million hospital construction upgrade about to start. The project has a R280-million black economic empowerment component promising some 200 local jobs. The headman and councillor have reportedly aligned themselves with the new chief executives, with local residents told that they’d be denied jobs unless they signed a petition in her favour.
Gaunt accused the police of inflaming the situation on Thursday, with protesters having subsequently lit a fire outside the hospital gates before regathering on a distant field.
“I’m pretty sure there are agendas here. Recently there was a taxi strike in [nearby] Mqanduli that lasted all day, blocking the main Coffee Bay road, with burning tyres, but there, no action whatsoever was taken by the police,” he said.
The Gaunt and Le Roux doctor couples have facilitated half a dozen NGOs delivering education, nutrition and HIV treatment and worked closely with local residents in what is one of South Africa’s most impoverished rural districts. The hospital serves about 125 000 people in the area.
Gaunt is suing the local union for defamation and considering another claim against Fatyela for repeating allegations that he received backhanders in the recent erection of a cell-phone tower and that he’s a “dishonest racist” bent on securing profits for himself and his fellow doctors through the multiple NGOs they’ve facilitated and invested in.
A provincial health inquiry into the conflict at the hospital is to be released within days.
The doctors have provided video and drone footage to the Mail & Guardian to back their assertions and said they intend to complain to the police Independent Complaints Directorate after laying assault charges.
The Eastern Cape director general of health, Dr Rolene Wagner, had not responded to questions from the M&G by the time of publication. A spokesman for the Eastern Cape health department declined comment, describing it as, “a police matter”.
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