Nehawu protests against state of North West healthcare facilities

Members of the National Education, Health and Allied Workers Union (Nehawu) in North West took to the streets of Mahikeng to protest against the poor state of healthcare facilities.
This after visiting different provincial institutions where they found amongst others, dilapidated infrastructure and lack of equipment.
The union’s provincial secretary Zanele Lawu says they are concerned about patient care and the safety of their members.
“There is no staff that is matching the number of patients that are attending to these health facilities, therefore we are marching today to call for a filling of all vacant positions, to address issues of acute shortage of staff in facilities. We are calling for a stoppage to the austerity measures that are put in place by government to ensure that there are sufficient facilities to care for our patients, so these issues are speaking directly to patients’ dignity and the issue of staff shortage speaks directly to the quality of care.”
Nehawu’s second Deputy President Patrick Makhafane says this is part of a larger national initiative looking into the state of healthcare.
“This is a national programme that started in the Eastern Cape, the things that we have discovered in these various health facilities and other general public facility areas, a traumatising picture that we normally pick up in the facilities that are supposed to serve people that have voted for this government.”
www.sabcnews.com, https://www.sabcnews.com/sabcnews/1110771-2/