Shivambu criticises freedom without proper health care
The EFF’s Deputy President Floyd Shivambu has criticised the celebration of Freedom Day in South Africa whilst the lack of access to public health care remains one of the biggest issues that the government is battling to address, 24 years into democracy.
He was speaking at the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s Howard Campus where he delivered a Freedom Day Lecture. Shivambu says the existing clinics and hospitals are inadequate.
“Hospitals are dysfunctional, clinics that are there are dysfunctional and a lot of villages do not have access to clinics. Here in KwaZulu-Natal in Umzimkhulu, in Exopo which do not have a clinic anywhere close, what happens when children and old people get sick? What happens when women have to get proper access to maternal health care? The clinics and hospitals that are existing are dysfunctional, shortage of health care staff is a crisis almost everywhere, shortage of medical equipment. That’s what we are subjected to in this freedom that we have to celebrate today,” says Shivambu.