Shortages of critical medicines and endless queues at clinics around the country are frustrating outpatients, whose anger is compounded by fear of having to do without vital medication, and safety concerns while waiting for opening hours.
TimesLIVE reports that at Madidi Clinic in North West, Samuel Mogauwe (54) is clutching a prescription slip instead of the high blood pressure medicine he desperately needs.
For weeks, he has left the clinic without his medication, forced to choose between his health and his finances as medicine shortages affect this rural community.
“I haven’t had my tablets since September,” he said. “I just can’t afford to buy them.”
Like many others in Madidi and neighbouring villages that rely on the same clinic for their medication, Mogauwe’s struggle is about more than just medicine. It’s about facing long lines, empty pharmacy shelves and a public health system under strain.
As the shortages, which residents say have been ongoing for months, continue, patients must decide whether to spend their limited money at private pharmacies or go without treatment and hope things improve.
But with no job and with more than R200 needed to buy the medication, Mogauwe said he could not afford to pay for it.
He said long queues also made it difficult to get assistance. Some patients are turned away and told to return the next day because there are too many people waiting to be helped.
But returning did not always mean they would receive their medication, he said.
He believes the clinic should operate for longer than eight hours a day to help ease the pressure.
Dora Malebo Kobe said she faced similar difficulties when collecting medication for herself and her disabled child. She often arrives early only to leave much later because of the long queues.
Nurses regularly tell patients they are short-staffed, while some people are sent home and asked to return the next day, she added.
Because she cannot afford to buy the prescribed medication, she sometimes travels with her son to Odi Hospital to obtain it, an additional burden for a family already struggling financially.
Councillor Keaobaka Sefike said residents had been struggling to get medication for more than three weeks, and that attempts to engage the Health Department were unsuccessful. He said the shortages were particularly worrying because many people were elderly and depended on regular medication.
Sefike warned that prolonged interruptions to treatment could have serious consequences for patients, and criticised the provincial Health MEC, saying he was disappointed the issue had not been addressed during a previous visit to the area.
He said the community had also raised concerns about the clinic’s operating hours, staffing and ambulance services. They wanted the clinic to operate 24 hours a day, and had complained about the lack of ambulances.
Sefike said Madidi residents needed better access to emergency transport and had proposed an arrangement allowing ambulances from Odi Hospital to respond to the community.
The North West Department of Health acknowledged that some facilities are battling with intermittent medicine supply problems, and said shortages were being addressed through “interventions involving provincial and national health authorities, suppliers and regulatory bodies”.
It blamed the challenges on several factors in the pharmaceutical supply chain, including manufacturing disruptions, shortages of raw materials, transport delays, increased international demand and changes to medicine procurement contracts.
The department said it was having problems with national pharmaceutical contracts, including medicines that had not been awarded contracts and regulatory constraints affecting some manufacturers, but that it was monitoring stock levels, outstanding orders and the needs of individual facilities.
It urged patients not to stop taking chronic medication or change their treatment without consulting a healthcare professional.
It also said patients who could not obtain their prescribed medication must raise the matter with pharmacy staff, nurses or doctors at their facility so that alternative arrangements could be considered.
Meanwhile, in the Western Cape, clinic patients are equally frustrated with queues and service delivery, reports the Cape Argus.
Safety concerns have also been raised over early-morning waits outside local facilities. Elderly people, mothers with babies, and people in wheelchairs have been seen queuing outside the Bishop Lavis Community Health Centre in harsh weather, prompting renewed calls for the Department of Health & Wellness to address long-standing concerns over queues and service delivery.
Patients start gathering outside from 5am, two hours before the clinic opens, with community representatives warning that vulnerable residents are being exposed to safety risks while waiting for care.
Graham Lindhorst, chairperson of the Bishop Lavis Community Police Forum (CPF) and a member of the Tygerburg Subdistrict Health Forum, said the early queues were a daily occurrence for residents, and that the area was dangerous during the early hours, leaving patients vulnerable while they waited for the clinic to open.
He said he had raised concerns about the situation with the Department of Health for years in his capacity as chairperson of the Tygerburg Subdistrict Health Forum, and at a meeting with the Northern Tygerburg Substructure on 30 September, poor service delivery and patient waiting times at the facility were again discussed.
However, the meeting had not produced a solution.
Frustration over service delivery has already prompted protest action in the area, with a community picket outside the facility earlier last month after the death of a woman outside the clinic.
The patient, who had a chest problem, was unable to access services, according to Lindhorst.
Hospersa subsequently called for an investigation into the death.
Lindhorst said residents wanted authorities to engage directly with the community to find a lasting solution.
The Health Department has acknowledged the waiting times of more than three hours, with spokesperson Megan Davids saying clinic management was aware of the situation and understood the discomfort of patients waiting outside.
“… but for patient safety and security measures, we cannot allow people on the grounds without staff being on duty,” Davids told IOL Media.
The facility operates from 7am to 4pm, while maternity obstetric services are available around the clock, she said.
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
Drug shortage fears as supply chain challenges persist
Call for probe into woman’s death outside Cape clinic
Some medicine shortages affect Gauteng’s hospital and clinics