Evidence wa ka Ngobeni
The Northern Province Department of Health has challenged a group of white doctors to prove that their application to start a new private hospital is not racially motivated.
The challenge comes amid simmering racial tension in the province’s state hospitals, with some white patients refusing to be treated by black hospital staff or to sleep in beds that have been used by blacks.
The department believes such racial tensions in public hospitals in recent years have informed applications for private medical facilities in the province.
Tshepo Moshima, a representative of the province’s health department, said the department will not issue private hospital licences until the applicants demonstrate that “their applications are not racially motivated”.
He said the department has written letters warning Tzaneen residents who intend starting a private emergency service.
The applicant doctors are considering legal action, dismissing the allegations of racism and saying they want to cater for both blacks and whites.
In a statement this week, the group of white doctors trading as Neomed IPA said the health department’s response to its application is “questionable”.
Neomed IPA representative Dr Ig van Rensburg said the application is meant to provide “quality health care”. His organisation will proceed with legal action against the department and will ask the high court to review the application.
In 1995, public hospitals in the Northern Province were rationalised, black superintendents, doctors, nurses and emergency workers appointed, and hospital doors opened to black patients.
Despite the doctors’ protestations, Moshima said the department believes that the new private hospital is meant to discriminate against black doctors and patients. “Black doctors find it very hard to even place their patients in private hospitals. They will simply be told that beds are not available.”
He said his department has found that “some white doctors have hidden agendas and are trying to discredit provincial hospitals. These people are failing to accept the new democratic changes that have taken place in hospitals.”
Moshima claims some white people from Tzaneen have refused to use the government’s emergency services.
He said the department is concerned about racial tensions in the former right-wing towns of the Northern Province. In 1996, for example, a child died after the parents refused to allow it to be treated by a black doctor at Ellisras hospital. The incident galvanised the town and now, several years later, race relations are improving, but there are still towns where race is a serious issue.
One institution that has been affected by racial tensions is Van Velden hospital in Tzaneen, about 150km from Pietersburg. The hospital superintendent, Dr Emanuel Khabuzi, said two weeks ago a white patient refused to be treated by a black female doctor, adding that the patient came through reception, filled in forms and went through to see a doctor.
“But when she realised that she was going to be treated by a black person she refused to co-operate, tore apart her hospital forms and left.”
Hospital staffers say some whites also refuse to sleep in hospital beds because black people now have access to the hospital.
Despite such incidents, Khabuzi said most white people in Tzaneen are adapting well to the changes and “take Van Velden as their immediate hospital”.
Van Velden hospital has served the white community for more than 40 years. Hospital officials say the institution has grown from a 20-bed hospital in 1962 to a 50-bed hospital in 1999. In 1995 the hospital went through a rationalisation process and now also serves villages such as Mariveni, Dan and Mohlaba Cross.
The hospital has two black doctors and three white doctors. The majority of nurses and emergency workers are blacks.
The head of emergency services, Louis Markram, said some whites have struggled to adapt to post-apartheid South Africa, and that black emergency workers claim there are white Tzaneen residents who have refused to use an ambulance when they respond to calls.
Markram added that although he does not tolerate racism “the whole issue has been thrown overboard”. Not only whites, he said, “can be racist”. In one incident, he explains, two black emergency workers, reacting to a car accident involving a black person and a white person, were forced by bystanders to first treat the black person before attending to the white patient.