Gauteng Health has denied any of its staff are involved in helping vigilante groups bar clinic access to foreigners, or turning away patients – including mothers desperate to vaccinate their newborns – writes Kimberly Mutandiro in GroundUp.
Operation Dudula, which is prohibiting immigrants from accessing health services, is contravening the 2023 Gauteng High Court ruling that pregnant and lactating women and children should be granted free healthcare regardless of nationality, while local staff are now being accused of aiding and abetting them.
The court had previously ordered Gauteng Health to change its policy denying immigrants healthcare, and to place notices on walls at all facilities stating that lactating women and children may not be denied access.
However, this order is consistently ignored.
At Jeppe Clinic last week there was no evidence of the notice, while a small group of Operation Dudula members was witnessed pulling immigrants out of the queue and barring them from entering.
Jane Banda, a Malawian national, said she had been struggling to get her seven-week-old baby vaccinated but has been blocked every time by Operation Dudula, while Aisha Amadu, an asylum seeker from Malawi with a two-year-old baby, and who had an appointment at the clinic, was also chased away by Operation Dudula.
Grace Issah, also from Malawi, has a 14-week-old baby who was due for a vaccine two weeks ago, but she has been chased from clinics in Jeppe, Bez Valley and Hillbrow, while several other women said they had been denied access to clinics in Malvern, Kensington, Rosettenville and Soweto.
The Socio-Economic Rights Institute (SERI) had launched a case in the Gauteng High Court in 2024 on behalf of Kopanang Afrika Against Xenophobia (KAAX), the Inner City Federation, Abahlali BaseMjondolo and the South African Informal Traders Forum.
The group wants an interdict to declare the actions of the vigilante group unlawful. The matter was heard in June, and judgment was reserved.
Mike Ndlovu from KAAX says it is a constitutional right for everyone in South Africa to be able to access healthcare.
“What Operation Dudula and a few complicit nurses are doing is unconstitutional, a criminal act, and a betrayal of our democracy. Denying healthcare is a violation of basic human rights,” he said.
Ndlovu called on healthcare workers to remember their professional duty: to care without discrimination.
Operation Dudula’s actions have been condemned by the South African Human Rights Commission, while Health Department spokesperson Foster Mohale said they were aware of the action by Operation Dudula, but denied staff were involved.
He did not respond to questions about whether the department has complied with the 2023 court order to put up the notices.
Zandile Dabula, spokesperson for Operation Dudula, did not respond to a request for comment. But Veli Ngobese, a member of the movement who was at Jeppe Clinic on the day GroundUp visited, said: “We are targeting all people from outside the country. We want Home Affairs to start afresh. Foreign nationals who come into the country should come and invest because those we see are selling vetkoek, pushing trolleys, and selling peanuts, but we are the ones paying taxes.”
He said the group would continue daily protests until immigrants stopped going to clinics.
GroundUp article – Operation Dudula blocks babies from getting vaccines (Creative Commons Licence)
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
Activists deny migrants access to hospitals and clinics
Gauteng clinics still denying treatment for pregnant migrants
Medical xenophobia and discrimination widespread in Gauteng health care