“No Refuge, Access denied” – SA ‘denies care to Zimbabweans’
Zimbabwean refugees in South Africa are being denied access to much-needed medical care, says the aid agency Medecins Sans Frontieres.
MSF says it has many reports of refugees who have been raped and injured being rejected by hospital staff or charged exorbitant fees.
The group describes the situation as a failure of the South African government and the UN to protect the Zimbabweans.
MSF said lone children are increasingly crossing the border and being abused. (via the BBC)
The following quotes are extracts taken from the MSF report. Download the full report here.
“A Zimbabwean mother brought her six-year old child to our clinic. The child had been raped. She was examined by our medical doctor and prophylactic treatment was given. Our counsellor did an initial counselling session with the mother and referred them to Child Welfare. From there they were referred to the hospital for further medical follow-up. The child was turned away from the hospital because she and the mother did not have legal documentation. It is unacceptable and inhumane to refuse treatment for a six-year old child who needs essential medical care after she has been raped. Not having legal documents cannot be a reason to deny access to health care.”
– Bianca Tolboom, Nurse and Project Coordinator, MSF in Johannesburg
“One woman was very ill. She had malaria and was HIV-positive. She was in bad condition, her temperature was very high. And we referred her to hospital, but then she came back the following day. We saw that she still wasn’t well, so we wanted to return her to the hospital, but she said she did not want to go there. We asked her why and she said the nurses told her, ‘You are dirty, you are smelly. You go back to Zimbabwe with your dirtiness.’
– An MSF health worker in Musina
“Our team referred an unconscious Zimbabwean patient to a hospital in Johannesburg. His condition was a result of assault, and the patient presented with a severe head injury. At the hospital, the matron in charge refused to attend to the patient who was in need of critical emergency care, claiming that the patient was not able to say his name, so she was not willing to attend to him. This is shocking. Every medical professional has an obligation to provide care to a patient who is presenting with a life-threatening condition.”
– Dr Eric Goemaere, Medical Coordinator, MSF in South Africa
“There were seven of us, all girls. We were just friends, not relatives. I was the youngest of them. We got on a bus to Beitbridge and when we got off these men were saying that if we don’t have money to cross, we could come with them. We opted to go in their cars. They said border jumpers travel at night so we drove around from 6 pm to 7 am. We went to so many different places I didn’t know where we were any more. Then they stopped at one place in the forest and this became our sort of home for the next four months. There were 13 men watching us all the time and they raped us every day. Eventually they started to let us go to urinate by ourselves and that is how we escaped. Now I am four months pregnant. I left Zimbabwe because I am an orphan – I am the breadwinner for my siblings and I came to find food and find a way to support them. Now I don’t know what I am going to do, how I am going to take care of them.”
– A 17-year-old Zimbabwean girl at the MSF mobile clinic, Musina Showground
“Last night we learned of a group of 500 women and children who attempted to swim across the crocodile-infested Limpopo River to reach South Africa, only to fall prey to local bandits known as ‘gumaguma.’ Five of the women who crossed were raped, and two babies were literally taken off their mothers’ backs and thrown into the river to drown.”
– An MSF health worker in Musina
“Every week we see women coming to our mobile clinics in Musina after being raped. They have tried to go to the hospital for emergency medical treatment, but at the hospital they have been refused medical treatment if they have not first reported the case to the police. Most of these women did not dare to go to the police and therefore they were left without the critical medical treatment needed to prevent HIV and other conditions within 72 hours after the rape.”
– Sara Hjalmarsson, MSF Nurse and Field Coordinator in Musina
June 4th, 2009 00:47
The west appears to be taking a hands off approach and leaving Zuma to intervene. The question is will he, and if so, will things begin to improve in Zimbabwe? If any remaining local Zimbabweans can not manage to get past the deadlocks of a power sharing government and begin to restore infrastructure the mortaility exhibited by AIDS and cholera may seem mild in the event of a serious outbreak of deadly influenza. From a humanitarian perspective there is simply no valid excuse for the tradgedies in Zim occuring over the past 25 years.
June 7th, 2009 18:42
Do not look to the west. The head of the problem is Mugabe, not the west. His allies in creating the problem are the heads of state in Africa who consistently refuse to ensure that he does not continue to destroy the country.
The head of these allies has in the past been Mbeki. Mbeki has family relations with Mugabe.
It now remains to be seen whether this neglect was due to ‘family’ connections or whether SA the country, which has the greates influence in the problem, will continue to aid and abet the man that has caused more misery on this continent than any other man in the history of africa.