This as HIV/Aids advocacy groups continue calling on her to ensure that all health facilities in the province have sufficient ARVs and other chronic medication. During the annual World Aids Day commemoration on the 1st of December, Positive Action Campaign’s Sello Mokhalipi highlighted that there are still hundreds of HIV infected people left on the receiving end of the stick as they battle to access medication. 

He said during their oversight visits they found that a number of healthcare facilities in Bloemfontein and surrounding areas had been without medication to a point where some patients have reportedly been without treatment for a period of more than two months. Mokhalipi said it is appalling that the shortage of HIV-treatment is something they constantly have to raise with the department without much being done about it.

OFM News previously reported on the Stop Stockouts Project's (SSP) report, which indicated a massive shortage of vaccines, contraceptive and HIV medication. The consortium of six civil society organisations, which monitors medicines' availability in healthcare facilities in South Africa, in their report earlier this year confirmed that the country was experiencing a shortage of critical medication and that a number of public healthcare facilities were running on a buffer stock. 

While, the provinces of Gauteng, Mpumalanga, Limpopo, Eastern Cape and the Free State were amongst those with enormous shortages, the spokesperson of the Free State Health Department, Mondli Mvambi, has meanwhile said the shortage was caused by lack of supply from international suppliers and the problem has since been attended to. 

Ntombela is today nonetheless expected to engage Koffiefontein residents in their challenges and address questions about the shortage of ARVs at healthcare facilities in the Free State.  

OFM News