Connie Selebogo
To spot a vervet monkey on hospital grounds is a pretty rare sight, but not at the Ga-Rankuwa hospital, north of Pretoria. The hospital is under siege from a pack of vervet monkeys that descended on the grounds in search of leftover food and some amusement.
Every day at dawn, these small primates organise themselves into family units and leave their habitat – a nearby hill – to invade the hospital and scavenge for food dumped in refuse bins.
Sometimes there is not enough in the bins, so the obvious target is the hospital kitchen. The kitchen is often left unlocked because it is under renovation, and the naughty primates have learned through careful observation how to twist down the handle and open the door.
The pack then helps itself to leftover food lying on top of tables and cupboards. Fortunately, stored food is locked away in cupboards, specifically to keep it from the monkeys. The primates usually vacate the kitchen when hospital staff report for duty in the morning.
What follows next is a field day of sun- basking and swinging on the rooftops of hospital buildings. It is during this time that the naughty little creatures go all out to look for something to amuse themselves. The children’s paediatric ward is reported to be one such favourite playground.
Hospital public relations officer Babe Mosuwe says the monkey business has been going on for a month and the management has appealed to Pretoria University’s veterinary school and the national zoo to come and remove the monkeys from the hospital.
“Our attempt was unsuccessful because the national zoo claims to be overcrowded and therefore no one is prepared to take them,” says Mosuwe. She believes it would not be easy to get rid of the monkeys because of their number and the fact that they are grouped into large families.
“These monkeys behave like street kids: if you take them out of the street to a better place, the next day when you pass by that place, you find another group of street kids at the same place,” she says.
However, Mosuwe says the arrival of these species into their hospital indicates that they are a hospital in Africa.
Despite the initial shock most people experienced at the concept, the little critters have firmly attached themselves to both the staff and patients, winning a special space in their hearts.
Eunice Modau, a housekeeper at the nurses’ home, holds a different view about the removal of these monkeys at the hospital. “These creatures are friendly and harmless and I feel that they should be left alone,” says Modau.
David Lebeloane, whose mielie field is raided every year by the monkeys, says that before moving into the hospital, the monkeys caused havoc at the Medical University of South Africa (Medunsa) – and the nearby the Area Zone Six township. They helped themselves in the fields and also made their way into the students’ rooms.
“These long-tailed creatures disappeared for close to three months, and on their return, they came back carrying baby monkeys back to front, and I knew that trouble was coming,” he said. He explained that normally when they come back, they look very hungry, so the first thing they think of is the mielie field.
Lebeloane started growing mielies and fruit in his yard six years ago but he has never tasted any of his products.
“This year I was forced to sit under my apricot tree for the whole day, trying to scare them. The one day that I was forced to leave the tree alone, I found it empty [after the monkeys had eaten all the fruit],” he said.