Everson Luhanga
Operation Dudula members ignored an interdict on Monday that barred them from preventing patients and staff they believed to be foreigners from entering Kalafong hospital in Atteridgeville.
The Gauteng Department of Health had obtained the interdict on Friday after members of the anti-immigrant group harassed people they suspected were foreign outside the hospital in recent weeks.
But the court order did little to stop them, as police one again had to step in when a mob of Dudula members tried to get into the hospital to chase away foreign patients.
The group’s members had been camping at a taxi rank opposite the hospital since Monday, 8 August, turning away patients they had decided were not South African simply by looking at their skin colour and listening to their accents.
Health department spokesperson Motalatale Modiba confirmed that police intervened on Monday and dispersed a group of people who had been camping outside the hospital.
He said a small group of protesters tried to prevent patients from gaining access to Kalafong Hospital, and that fortunately, police responded swiftly to calm the situation.
“Since there is a court interdict in place, the police served the protesters with the court interdict and they eventually dispersed from the hospital premises.”
The interdict bars a group of people from “threatening, preventing, and denying patients (deemed to be non-South African) and employees at Kalafong Hospital from accessing the facility to receive medical attention and to administer care respectively”.
Modiba said the department cautions the public against obstructing access to health care services which is a fundamental human right.
“The Department will not hesitate to call on law enforcement to act against those that put the lives of patients and staff at risk,” he said.
Image source: @KasiCrime
