This issue is highlighted in the Ritshidze project’s latest quarterly healthcare report for the period April to June 2021, the findings of which were released this week. 

The OFM News team spoke to a transgender woman, the 19-year-old Kananelo Kobile, who hails from Botshabelo, regarding the treatment she sometimes experiences when visiting clinics in Botshabelo for her routine hormonal treatment or HIV testing with her boyfriend. Kobile says she picks up her prescription from the Universitas Hospital in Bloemfontein but then receives her medication at a local clinic. It is here that she encounters issues because the clinic often doesn’t have the medication in stock.

She says when she probes the lack of medicine, nurses will tell her she is being dramatic “it’s not like you’re going to die tomorrow if you don’t get the medication”. The 19-year-old transgender woman says when she and her partner go for HIV testing, nursing staff will insult her boyfriend for being intimate with a transgender woman. She says it is a horrible experience.

Ritshidze is a community-led monitoring system developed by several HIV-related organisations like the Treatment Action Campaign, Positive Action Campaign, and Positive Women’s Network, amongst others. Their latest report finds that 95% of clinics in the Free State need additional space to ensure that patients are consulted in private consulting rooms and are therefore not dehumanised. The project recommends that by October 2021, the Free State must ensure that all clinics have private consulting rooms. Kobile says her experiences at the local clinic are negative for her self-esteem.

OFM News recently reported that the Kagisanong Clinic in Bloemfontein has, based on patient responses given to the Ritshidze healthcare project, been rated the most understaffed clinic in the Free State. The Hoopstad and Welkom Clinics are ranked the second and third most understaffed clinics by patients in the same report.

The Ritshidze Project Manager, Mary Nyathi, says stock-outs of fixed-dose combination antiretroviral medication in addition to a shortage of nursing and support staff are some of the biggest issues impacting the functionality of clinics in the province.  

“You find that when clinics are really short-staffed, tempers are all over the place. Most facility staff members are agitated because of the pressure they’re put under,” says Nyathi. She further reveals that in one instance, a facility manager was reduced to tears because of the lack of support staff, i.e. cleaners, which had resulted in her now having to clean the clinic herself daily before diving into her actual work. According to Ritshidze’s data (About Ritshidze - Ritshidze) for April to June 2021, 79% of facility managers, like the one referred to by Nyathi, concede there is a lack of staff in the clinics they head, with 26 vacancies observed across 20 of the sites monitored by the project’s team. Cleanliness has also been mentioned as another prevailing issue affecting Free State clinics, in light of a lack of cleaners.

50% of the primary healthcare facilities under observation by the project are said to not have enough cleaners with 18% of the cleaners officially registering cleaner vacancies. This is deemed to impact the rendering of healthcare to residents in the province quite severely, especially those who are HIV positive.

OFM News