Free State Clinic Short-Staffed and Overcrowded for 10 Years

The Lesedi Clinic building in Intabazwe township near Harrismith was left to ruin.

At the dilapidated, prefab Intabazwe clinic, near Harrismith, some patients are turned away daily even if they started to queue as early as 6am. The main clinic – Lesedi – has been shut ever since it was damaged in protests in 2015 and then left to vandals to be stripped. Intabazwe now serves over many thousands of households with some people walking over 8km.

A staff member told GroundUp at least ten people are turned away daily. “We are short staffed … We have two nurses, three staff nurses and two clerks to deal with a volume of over 200 people [daily].”

Resident Ouma Hadebe said one room of the Lesedi clinic was torched in the 2015 protest. “It looked like a petrol bomb was thrown through the window,” she said.

However, most damage came later when the clinic was left unguarded and was stripped “beyond repair”.

The Intabazwe prefab clinic stands on private land leased by the department from landowner Phakane Matabola. The original clinic building is used for files and storage.

Community members told GroundUp that Matabola locks the gates when he is not paid by the department. Matabola refused to comment. The department said the rental agreement was confidential. It said there was a “service interruption” in December 2024.

At the clinic we met Anna Nkambule whose grandson has TB. She collects medication for him every month. She queued from 6am only to be turned away at 4pm.

“They told me that they were only going to help me the next day as they were still helping those who were here yesterday,” she said.

The community has pleaded with the provincial health department since 2015 to build another clinic.

In her 2019 state of the province address, then Premier Sisi Ntombela said Lesedi was among 14 clinics to be upgraded.

In April this year, residents submitted a petition on the advice of PR Councillor Richard Khumalo (DA). Months later a committee inspected the site. Ciska Williams, provincial petitions unit manager said, “the matter is still under investigation”.

Mondli Mvambi, provincial health spokesperson, said rebuilding the clinic is delayed by budgetary constraints.

“The department acknowledges that staff shortages are not unique to this facility or to the Free Stat but are part of a national challenge,” he said.

Mvambi said home delivery of medication is provided for elderly and disabled patients.

Intabazwe clinic is the only primary health care facility for thousands of households.

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