Our anger should be targeted at corruption and cadre-appointment in government, not at foreign nationals

Dear readers,

I am not sure how many of you have been following the stories about the protests against foreign nationals using South African clinics and hospitals. There are millions of undocumented Zimbabweans, Mozambicans, Malawians, Swazi and Basotho people who have fled their countries as economic refugees seeking to trade and earn a living in South Africa. 

The frustration of healthcare workers was expressed by Limpopo Health MEC Phophi Ramathuba who was exposed in a viral video berating a Zimbabwean woman for seeking medical treatment in South Africa. The MEC does have a point about our limited resources but the anger, hatred and violence shown towards our brothers and sisters from neighbouring countries, many of whom are hard at work trying to put food on their tables and care for their children just like we do, makes me ashamed to be a South African.

Our colleagues at EWN reported that the unnamed patient Ramathuba berated underwent surgery at Bela Bela Hospital after being injured in a car accident across the border in Zimbabwe. 

The MEC who berated the woman in front of a laughing audience of medical staff, saying that she should seek medical attention from Zimbabwean president Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government instead, defended her stance, saying those criticising her are middle-class who are not part of the 90% who use public hospitals and don’t realise that people from neighbouring countries are abusing the system and collapsing medical healthcare in the province. 

Ramathuba was crude and rude and misdirected her frustration at the overburdened Limpopo health system on Zimbabweans and Mozambicans when instead she should be berating her colleague, Home Affairs Minister Aaron Motsoaledi instead.