Despite warnings against vigilantism, the controversial March on March movement is extending its campaign to several other hospitals and clinics in KwaZulu-Natal, and elsewhere, in its campaign to prevent healthcare access to foreign nationals.
Although, for the past six weeks, members of the movement have been guarding various public hospital and clinic entrances and aggressively denying entry to anyone who is not South African or who is suspected of being an undocumented migrant, there appears to be little action from health officials or police, notes MedicalBrief.
The movement first targeted Durban's Addington Hospital where they prohibit entry to anyone suspected of not being South African. Those who are local must provide an ID before being allowed in, and even then, it’s subject to the group’s discretion.
The anti-foreigner enforcers say they are determined to drive foreigners out of the country – and warned that their campaign will reach other provinces as well.
Teresa Nortje, the group’s KZN representative, claimed foreigners are overburdening public facilities meant for local citizens. Without providing evidence, she said their “research” showed that at least 75% of Addington patients are in the country illegally.
Refugees and asylum seekers are also turned away, while foreigners who are legally in South Africa, she said, must access private healthcare facilities.
“All foreign nationals will be stopped here until the government …fixes the Constitution. It says everyone can get medical help at this hospital, but ‘everyone’ should mean South African citizens. If you’re a foreigner, go to a private hospital. You’ve got work permits, visas, medical insurance. You shouldn’t come here with nothing, no job, and expect us, the taxpayers, to pay for your medicine.”
The group includes members of Operation Dudula, a prominent anti-foreigner movement, and they are supported by what she calls “progressive forces”, including various organisations and political parties.
March and March begins its first shift at Addington at 5am and remains there all day. Nortje said some foreigners arrive at 3am hoping to bypass them, but they are also blocked.
She said undocumented foreigners are also prevented from visiting patients in the hospital because they “assume” these patients are also “illegal”.
This week, another group from March and March will begin their “gatekeeping” at RK Khan Hospital in Chatsworth, before moving to Mahatma Gandhi in Phoenix – continuing until, Nortje said, “all public health facilities are monitored”.
Nortje said they have an “agreement” with the SAPS and Metro Police, which don’t interfere with them.
“For now, it’s the hospitals, but we are going to be expanding our campaign. We are going to be checking spaza shops and schools because 95% of children are illegal foreigners.”
She claims that since they started their campaign at the hospital, South Africans have been able to get their medication and treatments quicker than before, and the hospital’s staff are also happier because they are not overburdened.
Tomorrow, the group has planned a demonstration in Durban’s CBD to “amplify the voices of local citizens who believe the growing influx of immigrants is straining the country’s limited resources and affecting healthcare provision as well as crime rates, among other things”, it told the Daily News.
According to rally organiser Xolani Zuma, the demonstration will not only advocate for prioritising citizens’ needs, but also call for the arrest and prosecution of officials allegedly complicit in allowing undocumented immigrants into the country.
Founded and initiated on Facebook last year by radio personality Jacinta Ngobese-Zuma – whose contract at VumaFM was abruptly terminated last week – the movement aims to address the “deteriorating safety environment for South Africans”, its rising crime rates, drug trafficking, and human trafficking being attributed to the growing number of undocumented immigrants.
Additionally, the group has raised concerns about local law enforcement’s struggles in identifying offenders, amid claims that some officials were selling identities to illegal immigrants.
Undermining disease spread’
Nathi Olifant from the KZN Department of Health warned that preventing foreigners from accessing healthcare could undermine efforts to detect, control and treat infectious diseases, which may spread rapidly in communities.
“It’s not the Department of Health that should check whether people are illegal or not. It’s Home Affairs and SAPS. We treat everyone coming into our facilities,” he said.
The department said it was unconstitutional to prevent anyone from accessing healthcare, and condemned those who take the law into their own hands.
“At the same time, we condemn undocumented foreign nationals who unlawfully cross into South Africa with the sole intention of accessing our public health services. While our … institutions remain committed to upholding basic human rights and ethical healthcare standards, the increasing and unauthorised influx of undocumented individuals continues to place significant pressure on our already strained and underfunded … system.”
Health MEC Nomagugu Simelane-Mngadi and her department denounced the actions as “unlawful acts of vigilantism” earlier this month, saying “no member of the public or structure has the legal or moral authority to block others from accessing healthcare”.
“The KwaZulu-Natal Department of Health condemns, in the strongest possible terms, the actions of individuals and organised groups who take the law into their own hands by targeting health facilities and obstructing access to services. South Africa is a country governed by the Constitution and the rule of law,” she said.
Last week, the termination of Ngobese-Zuma’s contract at Vuma FM sparked allegations that the MEC had pressured the station by threatening to withdraw department advertising, but her office denied any involvement, calling the claims “entirely false and without merit”.
Ngobese Zuma’s employer later confirmed that it had chosen not to renew her contract, reports IOL.
Confrontation turns ugly
A Durban man who arrived at Addington Hospital for a physiotherapy appointment last week was assaulted by a group of militant illegal enforcers from March and March who accused him of trying to collect medication for foreign nationals whom they have barred from entering the hospital.
His confrontation with the group turned ugly when he was threatened with violence.
Crispin Hemson (77), a former Durban University of Technology academic and non-violence and anti-apartheid campaigner, was shoved and denied entry after he refused to show his ID.
A video he later posted on Facebook shows a man and woman forcibly pulling him back at the gate. The woman threatens to head-butt him, while also threatening to hit him, according to audio from the video.
March and March claims Hemson was at the hospital to retrieve medication for foreigners.
The former academic, who has denied the claims vehemently, only gained hospital access after a SAPS van escorted him inside the property for his physiotherapy appointment.
Hemson said when he tried to report the incident at Point Police Station, police allegedly told him they “only act when instructed by the Minister of Police”, and would not allow him to lay a charge of assault.
KwaZulu-Natal police spokesperson Colonel Robert Netshiunda denied the claims.
Hemson told The Independent on Saturday that when he spoke to one of the hospital managers, he was told the facility’s responsibility ends “at the fence”.
Court application for Zuma
In a Facebook post on Saturday, Ngobese Zuma revealed that she had received court papers from lawyers said to be representing the MEC. She was “stunned”, she said.
“I found out the matter was filed as an urgent application to be heard in court around 3pm (on Saturday),” she wrote. “My lawyers sent a letter responding, and now we wait for the ruling. I’m not sure why my name is in it, though.”
Screenshots attached to her post showed filings from the KwaZulu-Natal High Court (Pietermaritzburg) listing Ngobese-Zuma as a respondent alongside journalist Sihle Mavuso, who also posted his response online, saying the urgency was exaggerated.
“Well, late yesterday, uNomagugu and her so-called ‘lawyers’ filed their court papers and wanted the Pietermaritzburg High Court to hear the matter at 3 pm on the same day,” Mavuso wrote.
“I quickly filed my responding papers and told the court the urgency is self-created and it should penalise her for abusing it.”
Condemnation
The ANC in KwaZulu-Natal has issued a media statement defending Simelane-Mngadi and denying any role in the decision by Vuma FM not to renew Ngobese-Zuma’s contract. The party urged the public not to engage in “political lynching” of its leaders and insisted there was no political interference in the matter.
Ngobese-Zuma rejected the ANC’s version, describing its statement as “riddled with misleading claims” and damaging to her reputation.
In response, she has taken legal steps against the ANC, accusing it of spreading “misleading” misinformation that eroded her good name.
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