EFF Elias Motsoaledi region marches to Groblersdal Hospital
GROBLERSDAL – Scores of Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) members in Elias Motsoaledi region embarked on march to register their dissatisfactions with Groblersdal Hospital on Wednesday.
The marchers in red berets and T-shirts, holding high their placards and chanting struggle songs, initially gathered alongside the main Van Riebeek Street from where they proceeded to the hospital along Voortreker Street to hand over a memorandum of demands.
In their memorandum the marchers demanded the facility be renamed after one of the freedom fighters in the region as a matter of urgency.
That the shortage of ambulances be addressed and commitment be made that planned patient transport vehicles, which they allege are forever out of service, are always functional.
The marchers complained that at the over populated Rammupudu Clinic in Tafelkop like many others in the four Sekhukhune District’s local municipalities, patients, who at times start queuing at 4am, were turned back without accessing services.
They further complained staff at Matsepe Clinic were not welcoming to patients and that the facility was forever without medication.
They further demanded that security personnel working at Groblersdal Hospital be absorbed by the Department of Health and that female security officers be treated with respect by both company and hospital managements.
And that management of the hospital and the department must consider allocating emergency funding to renovate maternity wards at the hospital. They further called on the department to build more wards at the 49 beds hospital which caters for more than 10 000 residents.
The party gave the Department of Health 21 days to respond to their demands. It concluded that as a semi militant organization, it would never apologise for standing up for the poor and previously marginalized, asserting the constitutional rights of patients and worker including nurses and doctors and a better transformed conducive working environment for the benefit of patients and staff.
Neil Shikwambana, Limpopo Department of Health Spokesperson, said they have accepted the memorandum and would look into it and then respond within the number of days given for the response.
