Crime in SA: Healthcare workers carry a heavy burden
With healthcare workers having barely survived the wrath of COVID-19 for almost two-and-a-half years, there is nowhere to hide when an ongoing stream of crime victims are admitted to hospitals.
Murders, rape, and gender-based violence (GBV) are a part of daily reality in the country. And now, trade unions representing most health care providers have had enough. They say these workers face the brunt of this violence, working within an already stretched healthcare system.
According to the latest crime statistics for the period between January and March this year, 1 107 people more people were killed compared to 2021 for the same period. This means there was an increase of 22% in murders, and sexual offences rose by 13%.
Speaking to Health-e News, South African Medical Association (SAMA), spokesperson, Dr Mvuyisi Mzukwa, said that crime has become a health crisis, negatively impacting the already stretched public healthcare system.
The psychological burden
“It is a crisis because it negatively impacts the already limited health resources. The impact is largely psychological because healthcare workers are exposed to gross outcomes of violence and need psychological support. Secondly, the burden of disease is increased, meaning more work within a limited healthcare workforce,” said Mzukwa.
According to Mzukwa, healthcare workers in the country are battling to cope, with the increased burden of work, as a result of criminal activities like violence.
Mzukwa further stated that there is limited mental health support for healthcare workers who are subjected to trauma.
“As I indicated earlier, there is little or no support for healthcare workers. There is little or no debriefing after attending to a traumatic case. The counselling infrastructure has almost collapsed,” he said.
‘Crime adds to the squeeze’
Democratic Nursing Organisation (DENOSA) communications manager, Sibongiseni Delihlazo, agrees with Mzukwa, stating that criminal activities add further strain.
“We live in a country that does not have enough resources to cater to its citizens, so when you have crime as an additional problem, it squeezes the country’s healthcare system even further,” said Delihlazo.
Delihlazo said that most victims of criminal activities end up at healthcare facilities, overcrowding the system.
“Crime is a man-made kind of disaster for the country because criminality is a man-made phenomenon,” he said.
“When you have a country with a high vehicle accident rate, that puts a lot of pressure on the health system. Many of these patients, unfortunately, don’t make it and end up at healthcare facilities. So crime is an additional problem in a country that does not have enough resources allocated to the health services. It just turns the entire country’s health system into chaos,” said Delihlazo.
Doctors at Rahima Moosa Hospital unite , wearing black to protest the suspension of Dr Tim De Maayer for speaking out about injustices and deteriorating services at the facility. He is not allowed on the premises while sick children desperately need care. @GautengHealth pic.twitter.com/AFixgJfteP
— Dr Gail Ashford (@drgail3) June 10, 2022
At boiling point
Delihlazo further indicated that healthcare workers are also often victims of crime. This, as well as corruption, as seen with the PPE tenders, is a step too far.
Earlier this year, an assistant nurse was shot dead by her ex-partner while on duty at a Tembisa hospital in Gauteng.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) states that violence against health workers is unacceptable. Not only does it hurt the psychological and physical well-being of healthcare staff, but it also affects their motivation. Therefore, this violence compromises the quality of care and puts healthcare provision at risk. -Health-e News.
Author
-
Ndivhuwo Mukwevho is citizen journalist who is based in the Vhembe District of Limpopo province. He joined OurHealth in 2015 and his interests lie in investigative journalism and reporting the untold stories of disadvantaged rural communities. Ndivhuwo holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Media Studies from the University of Venda and he is currently a registered student with UNISA.
View all posts
Republish this article
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Unless otherwise noted, you can republish our articles for free under a Creative Commons license. Here’s what you need to know:
-
You have to credit Health-e News. In the byline, we prefer “Author Name, Publication.” At the top of the text of your story, include a line that reads: “This story was originally published by Health-e News.” You must link the word “Health-e News” to the original URL of the story.
-
You must include all of the links from our story, including our newsletter sign up link.
-
If you use canonical metadata, please use the Health-e News URL. For more information about canonical metadata, click here.
-
You can’t edit our material, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style. (For example, “yesterday” can be changed to “last week”)
-
You have no rights to sell, license, syndicate, or otherwise represent yourself as the authorized owner of our material to any third parties. This means that you cannot actively publish or submit our work for syndication to third party platforms or apps like Apple News or Google News. Health-e News understands that publishers cannot fully control when certain third parties automatically summarise or crawl content from publishers’ own sites.
-
You can’t republish our material wholesale, or automatically; you need to select stories to be republished individually.
-
If you share republished stories on social media, we’d appreciate being tagged in your posts. You can find us on Twitter @HealthENews, Instagram @healthenews, and Facebook Health-e News Service.
You can grab HTML code for our stories easily. Click on the Creative Commons logo on our stories. You’ll find it with the other share buttons.
If you have any other questions, contact info@health-e.org.za.
Crime in SA: Healthcare workers carry a heavy burden
by Ndivhuwo Mukwevho, Health-e News
June 20, 2022