More must be done to ensure security at clinics

How many more clinics, ambulances and doctors’ surgeries have to be robbed before decisive action is taken to stem the criminal crisis in Nelson Mandela Bay?

Frustrated Joe Slovo residents marched to the health department’s district offices on Tuesday to deliver a memorandum of demands, saying they are tired of being robbed while merely trying to access healthcare services.

The march was triggered by a robbery at the Joe Slovo clinic on May 11, in which four gunmen stormed the facility and took laptops and cellphones from staff and patients.

According to the residents, the clinic has been robbed in the same manner about a dozen times in the space of a year, including seven incidents since the beginning of January.

And, we know, this is not the only clinic that has been hit.

This publication has reported on countless incidents involving paramedic staff being attacked while responding to emergency calls, and even thugs running rampage both outside and inside clinics.

Just this week, Gqeberha doctor Bongani Nqini was abducted by gun-wielding assailants and his surgery in Kwazakhele robbed.

At the time of publication, he had not yet been released.

Just more than a year ago, while speaking at the memorial service of murdered doctor Bantu Noqekwa who was gunned down at his Zwide practice, Nqini emphasised the vulnerability of medical practitioners in townships due to heightened crime.

At the May memorial service, Nqini said doctors had become easy targets because their practices, which often helped the poor, were not protected.

No-one, whether in the civil service or private sector, can work under such conditions.

Communities in the Bay must be protected from criminals running amok.

Security must be provided at the clinics, but that alone is not enough to turn things around.

Communities, working with the police, need to stand up and protect their homes and places of work.

The police cannot do it alone.

HeraldLIVE