Sadly, today many people say they are remembering the old apartheid era whereby time and patients were respected, hospitals and clinics were clean and spotless, and nurses knew how to talk to and service patients.  

For example in Diepkloof in Soweto, the community is complaining about the service they are getting from the Diepkloof clinic. They say they wake up early in the morning to queue outside the clinic, waiting for 7:00 for the gate opening. 

But at these clinics, people know they will be lucky to return home with a broken heart. 

On 19 January 2023, a group of patients were standing by the gate of the clinic. They were complaining that they were told that they must go back home and come back the following day. They were told there is not enough staff to help them and that other staff are on leave. It is not their problem if there is no staff, but nothing they can do. 

Parents and their children are exhausted from wiating for help at Diepkloof clinic in Soweto. There is no hope that they will be assisted, they were told there are not enough staff. (Photo: Tshabalira Lebakeng)

“I need my medication today because I don’t have any now. The medication that I had yesterday was my last medication. I came here this morning, hoping to get my medication. But the nurse is telling me to go home, because they don’t have enough staff.” 

“The problem now is I will default, and when I default it’s a big problem. 

“When I come back the nurses will fight with me. They will ask me why I didn’t come on my date to collect medication. The nurse told me to come tomorrow, but they gave me today’s date. Now I’m confused when they are turning me back. It’s not my problem if they don’t have enough staff,’’ said a patient from Diepkloof clinic.

I visited the clinic at 12:45. When I got inside I found people seated outside next to the clinic door, exhausted and hungry. 

One of them was a four-year-old child, Thandi Dlamini (not her real name). Her sister said Thandi was playing at home and twisted or broke her arm.

“Yesterday Thandi was playing peacefully with other kids. We saw her coming into the house holding her arm, crying. She said it’s painful. My mother asked me to take her to the clinic today. 

“I went to the nurse and I told her that Thandi had a pain in her arm. We don’t know if it’s broken or twisted, now the arm is swollen. It looks like the blood is not flowing. 

“The nurse told me I should go wait outside with the child and get some fresh air. I told her I think this is an emergency, maybe a child needs cement on her arm. 

“The nurse just turned her back and left us’’ said Thandi’s sister. 

Thandi was in pain, needed emergency care and a cast if a fracture was present. I think the clinics and hospitals should have an eye for seeing emergency problems. That will reduce complaints and fights.

Thandi Dlamini (4) sitting on her sister’s lap at Diepkloof clinic, Soweto. Thandi hurt her arm, she was in pain, a nurse told them to wait outside and get fresh air saying it is not an emergency. (Photo: Tshabalira Lebakeng)

Thenjiwe Hlophe (29), not her real name, is the mother of an infant. She said she arrived at 7:12 AM because her baby was sick. 

“I didn’t sleep, I came here because I could see my baby is leaving this world. I talked to another nurse with respect, I told her my baby is burning, I don’t know what’s going on. She told me I must stay in the line and stop asking questions. All of the people that I see here have problems like me.  

“I told her I understand, but can she just check my child for a second, maybe my baby needs oxygen. In response, the nurse told me she had only just arrived at the clinic, and now I want her to leave the people who came before me and start with me.

“I will wait here, maybe my baby will be lucky to see a nurse. But I’m worried because my cousin’s infant died at home kwaMagasela in KZN in 2009. It won’t happen twice in our family,’’ said Thenjiwe.

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She told me “maybe they will help her when the baby is dead”. She doesn’t want special treatment, the only thing she needs is just to be told that her baby is not that bad. 

“I can’t afford money for a private doctor. The father of my child is working temporary work, we are only affording necessities. We don’t have R500 for a doctor.” 

Left, Thenjiwe Hlophe with her sick infant at Diepkloof clinic Soweto, desperately waiting for a nurse to help them. Doreen Thibedi is angry after being humiliated by nurse by calling her an alcoholic. (Photo: Tshabalira Lebakeng)

Next to Thenjiwe was Doreen Thibedi (50), not her real name. She said the most painful thing in South Africa is to be poor, because you will be treated like rubbish. 

“You see these bottles of water next to me, it’s helping me to suppress the pain I have in my chest. I don’t know what I have in my body, I don’t know if I have TB (tuberculosis). I’m losing weight every day. I got the tablets at the shop but they are not helping. My last hope is the clinic, because I can see I will die of something that my family doesn’t know. 

“When I got here, I didn’t like the way a nurse talked to me. She told me by the look of my face, I’m an alcohol abuser. I must go home and eat healthy, me and alcohol, we are not friends. 

Thibedi continued: “I’m not here to be judged, no matter if I’m an alcoholic or not. Furthermore, I’m here to be helped. Now people keep on looking at me because I was insulted by the nurse. I’m humiliated.’’ 

Thibedi told me that because of what happened to her, she will be the gossip of the week at zone 3, because many people know her. 

“If Diepkloof clinic nurses don’t want to work, they should give the young people a chance. Because it’s clear that these old nurses want to go on pension.” 

She said these clinics need to be closed down. “There is no passing day when you don’t hear that there is someone humiliated in these clinics.” 

Another angry patient, Teboho Tamani (46) told me had a sharp pain from the neck running down to the spine. He feels like he will fall down. 

“I’m sick, this sharp pain is killing me, maybe I have Corona. I have been in the line since 5:00. At work, they are expecting me to come with a letter from the clinic. Where will I get the letter because it’s 1:30 pm now and the clinic is closing at 4:00? I’m number 18. Do you think I will have a chance to see a nurse in this slow-motion?” 

Tamani said: he went to the facility manager and asked her if it was possible to get a letter to show his boss at work to prove he was in the clinic. “Because I can see, I won’t have a chance to see a nurse. She answered me with a bad attitude, she told I must stop stressing her: ‘who told me I won’t see a doctor or nurse? I must go and relax outside.’ 

“When I tell her that it has been hours, but there is no movement in the clinic, everything is stacked, she told me I must stop being childish and become an activist.

“The facility manager is not supposed to talk to me like that. She is a professional, she should have communication skills. She should know how to calm down the situation, because if you can look around here, people are frustrated and need help. But what they are getting is a bad attitude. 

“I’m sick, pain is killing me. I have been in the line from 5:00 in the morning,” said Teboho Tamani at Diepkloof clinic Soweto. (Photo: Tshabalira Lebakeng)

“I’m telling you, my brother, as long as they are not helping me, I will sleep here. I won’t lose my job. I won’t go to work without the letter that will tell my boss that I didn’t get the help, and I was at the clinic. Because if I don’t have that letter, my boss will kick me out”, said Tamani. 

He said he didn’t care if they call the police, he will speak his mind. He is “not trying to be political. But people are complaining about these clinics and when you are asking questions you become a victim of verbal abuse.” 

At the end of my visit, I wondered what makes the nurses angry or have a bad attitude to the patients. Why don’t we have enough staff at our clinics or hospitals? Don’t we have graduates who studied nursing in our country? It’s not a good thing when the public is saying nurses are from hell and they don’t want their children to work at the health department because they will be disrespectful.

Humanity and respect is the first thing they should use when they are working with people. It feels like the department of health is failing by not giving proper training to its staff. 

As a result, when people need to go to a clinic or hospital they feel stressed, thinking about how and even whether they will be treated when they get there.  DM/MC