SOUTH Africa’s Health minister Aaron Motsoaledi has warned that attacks targeted at foreigners in that country to stop them from accessing health services at public hospitals can also deny treatment to over six million undocumented citizens of that country.
His remarks came as vigilante groups like Operation Dudula and March on March continue to block foreign nationals, including Zimbabweans, from accessing life-saving medication in public hospitals.
Motsoaledi said he met with Operation Dudula members and warned them about the consequences of their actions.
“I took them through this whole process of immigration. I told them they may be solving what looks like a legitimate problem but using the wrong means, because in health we treat everybody who enters there who is sick,” Motsoaledi told that country’s media.
“They cannot expect us to chase people away when they are sick, whatever the circumstances of their nationality, it’s just not allowed in healthcare anywhere and they must not confuse issues.”
He said there was a mistaken belief that healthcare in South Africa is free, but not in any other country in the world.
“Health care is free for children under six and young women,” he said.
“So we only offer free healthcare to children under six and young women of whatever nationality."
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He said South African law mandated treatment for all patients regardless of nationality or documentation.
“. . . If you come to the hospital without money and there is an emergency, there is no way you will not be treated because the Department of Health will be sued, it will be litigated in a way unimaginable,” he said.
He criticised Dudula’s demands to turn clerks into “documentation police,” warning that could affect vulnerable citizens of that country.
“In South Africa, we are at 89% documentation, which means 11% of South Africans are not documented. If you look at our population, 11% will be about 6 million people,” Motsoaledi said.
“They do not have any form of document, but they are not illegal because they are in their country. They are South Africans but they have no documents whatsoever and they do not appear in our database."
Zimbabwean civic organisation Humane Human Rights has since appealed to President Emmerson Mnangagwa to establish an emergency HIV treatment centre at the Zimbabwean embassy in South Africa, saying people living with HIV in the neighbouring country risk defaulting on medication.
Doctors Without Borders has also condemned the vigilante groups targeting of foreign nationals, including pregnant women, people living with HIV, chronic patients, and children, to stop them from accessing healthcare.
South Africa’s government and opposition figures like Julius Malema have condemned the violence, but vigilantes remain undeterred.
