Durban — The closure of the Newtown Community Health Centre, in Inanda, has left patients frustrated since the April 2022 floods.
Amid piped water supply issues to the area, a group of Inanda, Newtown A, residents took to the streets to protest, on Monday, demanding the centre be reopened and the water infrastructure repaired.
This is the second protest in less than two months, which prompted newly elected eThekwini Mayor Cyril Xaba to visit the area.
On Monday, the angry community barricaded a street with burning tyres and wood affecting businesses and disrupting the flow of public transport minibus taxis. The SAPS Public Order Policing Unit had to be called in.
A disgruntled resident, Londi Mnguni, said community members have to travel longer distances to access health care – with added transport costs.
“Many youth have defaulted their chronic treatment due to this. The MEC for Health must visit the clinic and tell us what they are doing to fix it because we are suffering. We need solutions now,” Mnguni said.
Mnguni said that the water supply issue is an ongoing problem and residents in the community stay without water for up to three months.
“We have an ongoing issue of water and we feel that we are not being assisted by our councillors.
“They had a meeting last week, and they did not invite us to the meeting, yet we have been complaining.
“It is an issue for us having a lack of service delivery, when I am at work my 98-year-old grandmother struggles. We have people whose houses were destroyed during the floods, buses can not enter our streets anymore due to the poor condition of the streets,” she said.
Last month, the Daily News reported that the community protested about water issues, despite Xaba visiting the area. In a statement the day after the visit, the City said the community welcomed the mayor’s visit and committed to working with him to find long-lasting solutions to the water challenges and other service delivery issues.
The City added that water interruptions in the Inanda, Ntuzuma and KwaMashu areas were due to water losses through leaks and vandalism, which the community was not reporting.
Another resident, Sihle Mnikathi, said they started noticing that the clinic might not be fixed when the nurses were transferred to other clinics. Mnikathi said he heard that the clinic was closed temporarily and will be built into a double-storey building.
Ward 56 councillor, Siyabonga Ntombela, said he was aware of the issues raised by the community.
Ntombela said he and other councillors have reached out to the Department of Health with regards to the clinic issue.
“Last week, we visited the area and spoke to the community about the challenges.
“We asked the community to give us two weeks to get the Department of Health to address this issue,” he said.
He said that he hopes that the issue will be resolved.
Spokesperson for the KZN Department of Health, Ntokozo Maphisa, said: “The department is aware of the situation, and would like to clarify to the public that the facility was extremely damaged by storms in 2022, even then the clinic was not totally closed down as some services continued to be rendered.”
He said the institution had to suspend some services after the structure sustained extensive damage during the floods of April 2022.
“The delay in rebuilding the clinic is highly regretted as it was beyond our control. This was due to the fact that the appointed service provider abruptly withdrew just before starting. The department had to reappoint a new service provider who will be announced in due course, which will be as soon as possible.
“While this is not ideal, we appeal to the community to exercise patience and restraint as the process unfolds to build a new improved clinic,” Maphisa said.
He urged the community to use the nearest and neighbouring health facilities while the process of rebuilding the clinic is under way.
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Daily News