Pretoria – Kalafong hospital staff members have also been a targeted by members of the lobby organisation Operation Dudula after they were required to produce IDs proving that they were South Africans.
The group has been picketing and targeting foreign nationals outside the hospital in Atteridgeville, west of Pretoria, for several days.
Speaking to Radio 702, Kalafong Hospital CEO Sello Matjila said foreign patients have been turned away.
“Our staff have no free movement. I mean even during the day, I imagine that if someone wants to go buy food just across the hospital they cannot do that any more because this group is just lurking outside the hospital,’’ Matjila told the broadcaster.
According to The Sowetan, members of the group mainly stopped women based on their “appearance and skin tone”, and also demanded to see proof of identification. The patients were also asked questions to ascertain their origin.
The publication added that white people and light-skinned black people were reportedly permitted to enter the hospital freely, while dark-skinned people faced a barrage of questions to ascertain if they were South African.
Last week, Doctors Without Borders said several foreign nationals had been turned away from public hospitals in Tshwane by activists in what the non-governmental organisation called an intensifying xenophobic climate and politicisation of healthcare.
Government spokesperson Phumla Williams said actions by Operation Dudula members infringed on basic human rights.
“The victimisation of patients and hospital employees who are suspected of being foreign nationals should be condemned by all of us. In South Africa, the right to access basic health services is a basic human right that is guaranteed by the Constitution.
“South Africa is governed by the rule of law, which makes provision for every person in the country, regardless of their nationality or documentation status, to access healthcare,” Williams said in a statement.
Minister in the Presidency, Mondli Gungubele, said “preventing access to healthcare can have dire consequences to patients and have a negative impact on the public health system and to citizens at large.
“We understand that the public health system is overburdened because of a myriad challenges. However, doctors and healthcare workers have an obligation to provide healthcare to those in need.”
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