The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) in Limpopo on Wednesday issued a strongly worded statement condemning the conduct of the Limpopo Health MEC Dr. Phophi Ramathuba for giving an ailing foreign national a tongue lashing for seeking free medical services in South Africa.
A video has gone viral in which Dr. Ramathuba tells a Shona-speaking patient she won’t be treated unless she pays because the health budget for Limpopo can not cope with the number of foreign nationals seeking free health treatment.
Commenting on the matter, the EFF said it condemned the conduct of the MEC “with the contempt it deserves”.
The EFF added “Her entire ill-informed and inhumane performance and address to a sick patient awaiting surgery is inconsistent with all universal standards of patient confidentiality and dignity.
“The MEC’s open rejection of patients awaiting surgery on the basis that they are African from other African countries is only informed by nothing else, but Afrophobia – a hatred of other African people.
“Today, it is Zimbabweans, tomorrow it will be poor unemployed South Africans who will be told they don’t have any contribution to the economy or the taxes, thus to the country’s budget but they want to be operated in public hospitals”
The EFF listed several questions in its statement regarding Dr. Ramathuba’s conduct that included:
- Why even address a patient on their dying bed about budgets and political limitations of healthcare?
- Why reject their applications for surgical operations by addressing them as a group in front of cameras and other people?
- Where are patient confidentiality and dignity?
“The basic fact that they are human means their rights to dignity are inalienable,” said the EFF.
“It does not matter what the limitations of the budget are, no one, not even illegal immigrants deserve such humiliating treatment.
“This after a shocking video surfaced on social media, showing the MEC’s antagonism and acrimony against a black African female patient, apparently from Zimbabwe who was admitted at a local hospital in Bela-Bela.”
The EFF said the MEC has “undoubtedly launched a scathing attack on foreign nationals”.
In the video she can be heard asking the patient about her language and why the patient find herself in Bela-Bela/Lephalale as a non-South African, instead of receiving treatment in Zimbabwe, which is under the leadership of President Emmerson Mnangagwa.
“Africa belongs to Africans and there is no room for Xenophobia in South Africa, therefore the EFF will report Ramathuba to the South Africa Human Rights Commission for what is an outright Human Rights violation of patients,” said the statement.
“Furthermore, we call for the revocation of her license as a professional doctor for undermining the code of ethics for medical doctors and trying to enforce a dompas system in Limpopo hospitals.
“Finally, we call on her immediate removal as MEC. Our country cannot be led, at any level, by anyone who will not respect the dignity of African people.
“The MEC is a direct danger to our humanity as a people and the basic requirements of conduct of health professionals. People go to hospitals to find life, not humiliation and death.”
The matter is also trending on social media with some South Africans pledging support for Dr. Ramathuba.
Dr. Ramathuba told Sunday World on Wednesday that Limpopo hospitals are experiencing an influx of foreigners, mostly from Zimbabwe, who are being treated at the expense of the provincial government and its rural poor people.
“Our constitution is clear that we must never deny anybody health benefits. Rural Health Matters’ initiatives have been established to assist poor people in Limpopo,” Dr. RRamathuba was quoted as saying by the Sunday World.
“When illegal immigrants hear that the MEC is coming to a particular district in Limpopo, undocumented foreign nationals come and get operated.
“Even the same day when the clip was taken, an illegal immigrant who got an accident in Harare said he came to Limpopo because he heard that a Limpopo [health] MEC operates [on] people for free.”
Meanwhile, the Democratic Alliance (DA) in Limpopo said it has written to the South African Human Rights Commission over what it said was the unacceptable conduct of Dr. Ramathuba toward a Zimbabwean patient in a video.
“This incident is just another reason why she must be fired to save the province’s health system,” said the DA.
Limpopo Health MEC Dr. Phophi Ramathuba
