LIMPOPO health MEC Dr Phophi Ramathuba has the nation divided.
This after she was filmed lambasting a foreign national who was scheduled for surgery at Bela Bela Hospital.
In the video, she can be heard telling the patient that her home country Zimbabwe must take responsibility for her health issues and not Mzansi.
She’s filmed saying: “You’re supposed to be with Mnangagwa. He doesn’t give me money to operate you guys. Now I must operate you with my limited budget.”
She further says undocumented foreign nationals are killing her health system.
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“When you guys are sick you just say, ‘let’s cross the Limpopo river. There’s a MEC there who’s running a charity department’,” she said.
Ramathuba further tells the patient that when StatsSA does its census, they count people who are in the province and take the number to the National Treasury for budget allocations.
“And it tells me that in Limpopo, we have 5,7 million people and 91% of those people do not have medical aid. They are dependent on the state. The 9% have medical aid,” she says.
“They go and give National Treasury, the treasury give me the budget for the 91% to do all this operations. Now I am here instead of using the budget for what it’s meant for. I’m operating for what Mnangagwa is supposed to do,” she can be heard saying in the clip that has since gone viral.
“You are not even registered anywhere. You are illegal, this is unfair.”
Setting the record straight about the video, Ramathuba said her comments were taken out of context.
She said on daily basis they have an influx of foreign nationals choking the health system in province.
She said the situation is getting worse because the province has a backlog of surgical operations.
“I started doing inspections, only to find that the vast majority of people on the list are foreign nationals and the operations they come here for are not even emergencies,” she said.
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But on Twitter, some said as much as she was telling the truth, she was not supposed to address it in that manner.
@LorenArries said: “No, no, people, it is unacceptable that a government official harassed a patient, irrespective of nationality, in hospital. That conversation belongs with her colleagues in policy discussions – macro issues. Disgusting to abuse her power by putting undue pressure on a patient.”
@AllEyeZ360 said: “I understand her frustration but she is addressing this to the wrong person .. this is unethical, gross misconduct from a health professional. These people have an ethical code of conduct to save lives, regardless of the race, tribe or ethnicity of patients.”
@Limpopo_san said: “Unacceptable is when a South African woman lies on the floor pregnant when a Zimbabwean is on the bed.”
@Azwitshuwisi said: “She is 100% correct. There’s a large number of Zimbabweans in all provinces, particularly in Limpopo. They go from one clinic to another, claiming they are sick and collect medication for free and send it to Zimbabwe for resale.”
