Bongani Siqoko
The clinic at Elomoya village, north of KwaZulu-Natal, which was built by the community almost three years ago, is still standing in long grass, unstaffed and unequipped. This means that for people to get proper health care, they have to walk 36km to the nearest Ndlangubo clinic or 45km to Gezinsila.
After three years of fund-raising, this R200 000 clinic was built in July 1995 with the Department of Health’s full backing. The department also agreed to staff and equip it once it was built.
Now the government has turned against that agreement, said community development officer Jean Thomassen. Instead of staffing the clinic, the department has decided to ignore the existing structure.
This village still depends on monthly visits from the mobile unit – as long as it does not rain. Thomassen said when it rains the mobile unit does not come to the village. She said people are not satisfied with these visits as they were not frequent enough. This is one of the reasons they built a clinic.
The Department of Health regional director at Empangeni, Mandla Mhlongo, said the government has not ignored the building but has launched an investigation into the existing structure. Reasons for this, he said, were they have realised the siting of the building is not ideal and there was no meaningful consultation before it was built.
“It is far from the other side of the village because it is not at the centre. And there are no toilets,” said Mhlongo. He added that nurses do not want to work at Elomoya because there is no accommodation.
Thomassen dismissed this and said before the clinic was built medical authorities were consulted and all agreed that the area was ideal for a clinic. “If this place is not ideal why did they agree,” she asked.
Mhlongo said suggestions that this structure was built as a clinic, were untrue. He said it was built as a shelter for the mobile unit. “This is just a stopping point for the mobile unit and our people did not understand that. They think that this is a clinic,” he said. Mhlongo added that he was unaware of any agreement between the community and the government.
While the authorities are still fighting over this structure, people continue suffering. Thomassen said in her six years working with the poorer communities in the province she has seen how the they have suffered. She said the village is far from the main road and there is no public transport operating in the area.
She added that the situation becomes worse when it rains ” because the road is steep, muddy and slippery and there are two rivers that have to be forded”. Because of unavailability of public transport, sick people are often transported in wheelbarrows.
Thomassen dismissed Mhlongo’s concerns as sheer ignorance. “It is not true to suggest that nurses do not want to work at Elomoya. There are two nurses who stay in the village and want to work in the clinic.” She insisted that an agreement between the community and the government exists .
She said after the building was completed in 1995, she wrote to almost every prominent government official, including national Minister of Health Nkosazana Zuma and President Nelson Mandela, asking them for help.
Medical authorities in the area admit that there is a need for a clinic in the village. Elomoya, which has an estimated 15 000 population from three tribal groups, is one of the poorest villages in the province and a clinic is a necessity. People often get sick because there is no running water and no proper sewage system.
The least the government could do for this community is to allow the clinic to operate and “the people would be happy”, said Thomassen.
The community is now angry and feels cheated because they helped the government to build a clinic.