Controversial South African politician and medical doctor Phophi Ramathuba has criticised African leaders who seek medical treatment overseas, while the healthcare systems in their countries are collapsing, reported News24.
Ramathuba, who is the Limpopo Health Member of the Executive Council (MEC), was speaking on Wednesday as one of the panellists at a three-day Africa Health Indaba taking place in Midrand, Gauteng. She said:
The legislation should come up with [a] pronouncement to say no African leader should consult in another country unless they fix their own public healthcare system. You [leaders] should stop going to other countries.
You should die in your own country and get treated in your own country. It is high time for leaders to believe in their system.
When I am sick I can be flown to a five-star medical centre and we don’t care. We die in Turkey and Singapore hospitals.
When you get to those hospitals it is five-star service. But who is paying for that? The very same poor and vulnerable we have left behind.
No African leader must consult in another country. They must fix their own system. Die in your own country and hospitals.
Ramathuba said she used Polokwane Hospital and other public hospitals close to where she worked.
She said no African leader should seek medical care in foreign lands until they fix the public health delivery system in their countries. Said Ramathuba:
No African leaders should consult in another country unless they fix their public healthcare facilities.
They need to believe in the public healthcare system because their voters also believe in them.
SA’s Limpopo Province borders Zimbabwe, Botswana and Mozambique and Ramathuba challenged the neighbouring countries to collaborate as her system is overwhelmed. TimesLive quoted Ramathuba as saying:
I can complain about undocumented persons in the system but I can’t complain about a mosquito jumping over the border and coming to South Africa and making people sick.
I can use preventative measures all I want but if my counterparts are not doing the same I will not succeed.
When you negotiate with the country’s ambassadors, they will never say yes, please give us the bill we will pay, but they become rude.
When you tell them that I am overstretched, they will tell you they didn’t ask you to treat their country people.
These leaders know that when they are sick, together with their families, they can access the best healthcare system.
That’s why they don’t care about people experiencing poverty. We need to change our mindset and start prioritising the poor.
Ramathuba said Africans have embraced new lifestyles but the healthcare systems have not adapted to the changes. She said:
If you look at how we were raised as Africans, we had a healthy lifestyle.
Before we ate meat we had to chase the animal and catch it. It would have lost kilos.
Now we eat chickens that have thighs bigger than mine.
When we moved from villages and adopted city life, did our healthcare prepare us for the changes?
We created problems for ourselves. We have to develop healthcare systems that respond to our problems.
Meanwhile, Ramathuba currently faces a disciplinary hearing at the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) after she accused undocumented immigrants of draining the country’s resources.
Ramathuba was thrust into the limelight in August 2022 after she confronted a Zimbabwean patient at a Bela-Bela hospital telling her that South Africa does not have the budget to accommodate foreign nationals.
Ramathuba told the woman that she should get treatment in Zimbabwe.
In a video clip that went viral, Ramathuba could be heard telling the woman that the Zimbabwean government does not contribute to her budget. She said:
How do you find yourself in Bela-Bela when you are supposed to be with Mnangagwa (Zimbabwean president Emmerson Mnangagwa) there?
You know he doesn’t give me money to operate you guys and I’m operating you with my limited budget.
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