Dear Editor
The DA is disturbed by reports that staff work in fear in Maqanyeni Clinic in Ngqeleni, in the Eastern Cape.
Last Friday, a security guard was sadly shot and killed as well as a female staff member assaulted during a robbery, after four suspects gained entry into the facility. Five computers were also stolen. The suspects remain at large, and we call on SAPS to ensure speedy justice.
The DA expresses its deep condolences to the family, friends and colleagues of Dakhile Ngobe, whose life was tragically taken.
At the end of last year, the DA revealed through a Parliamentary question that more than 100 attacks have occurred at public health facilities since 2022, including incidents of assault, robbery, rape, and murder. We call for the Minister of Health, Dr Joe Phaahla, to urgently focus on ensuring safety at our healthcare facilities, in order for staff to do their important work and for patients to get the care they need.
While President Cyril Ramaphosa “looks for his pen” to sign the disastrous National Health Insurance (NHI) Bill, it is clear that our healthcare system needs to get the basics right first. This includes leveraging the strengths of the private healthcare sector to bolster public healthcare; working with private health providers to lower premiums and out of pocket costs; ensuring cheaper, more accessible prescription medicines, as well as building the necessary infrastructure and hiring more personnel.
Our healthcare system will only succeed once we remove politicians from its provision, and we ensure that healthcare is administered independently. With Parliamentary watchdogs, we can also ensure that all our facilities are up to standard in their required level of care.
On May 29th, voters must choose a healthcare system that benefits their lives and ensures quality care, away from violence. Only the DA can provide that. The ANC can go promote their false fantasies elsewhere.
Regards
Michele Clarke MP
DA Shadow Minister of Health
blood taker
Van is getting married, but he and his fiancee have never done the deed – in fact he\’s never been with any woman before. He\’s getting more and more nervous as the big day approaches, so he confides in his friend. His friend says \’No worries man. I\’ll come by the honeymoon suite before you guys get there, and I\’ll hide behind the curtain, and I\’ll whisper instructions to you.\’
\’You\’d do that for me?\’
\’Sure thing man!\’
So the wedding day arrives, it was a lovely service (so I was told, I wasn\’t there myself) and Van\’s friend sneaks into the honeymoon suite as promised and hides behind the curtain.
Van and his new wife arrive in the room, get settled on the bed, and things are getting steamy.
But Van is still super nervous and his tummy is bubbling, so he murmers to his wife, \’Listen babe, I\’m just gonna go to the bathroom quick. I think it\’s that wors roll from earlier.\’
\’Sure thing babe.\’
So Van goes into the bathroom, and he\’s taking quite a long time. And his wife is starting to feel the nerves herself. And it\’s getting worse. She can\’t hold it in. But she doesn\’t want to go after he\’s gone and totally ruin the mood. So she looks around and finally finds a shoebox. Quickly, she does her business in the shoebox, and she shoves it under the bed just as Van comes back from the loo.
Van gets back on the bed and they go at it again. But after a minute or so Van smells something not so lekker.
\’What\’s that smell?\’
\’Nothing babe,\’ he wife tries to assure him.
\’No man there\’s definitely something not so lekker in this room!\’VSo Van starts looking around the room, in the corners, in the cupboard, and finally he looks under the bed, and sees the shoebox.
He pull it out, and opens it up, and in horror he shouts \’Sies! Daar\’s kak in hierdie doos!\’
And from behind the curtain his friend yells, \’NEE MAN, DRAAI HAAR OM!\”
Pockets
Brazil: You have two cows. But not for long, because one shoots the other dead.