Giwusa slams Operation Dudula for denying migrants healthcare access

The General Industries Workers Union of South Africa (GIWUSA) condemned Operation Dudula, and March and March, for denying migrants access to healthcare.

According to the union, these 'xenophobic acts' were a violation of the most fundamental human rights and a dangerous diversion from the real crisis in the healthcare system. The union said it was a crisis created by 'neoliberal austerity, corporate looting and profiteering, corruption, and mismanagement'.

GIWUSA President, Mametlwe Sebei, alluded to the crisis confronting the country's healthcare sector.

"It is true that the clinics, hospitals and other healthcare services in our working-class communities are failing the poor, including the elderly, children, disabled and chronically ill people, who can’t afford long queues," Sebei said.

"Equally, they fail everyone with shortages in staff of critical healthcare professionals, including doctors, dentists, nurses, and specialists, a lack of essential equipment, beds and medicines."

Sebei said the issue of blaming and denying migrants access to healthcare is scapegoating and serves in the fracture and weaken working-class organisations.

"This weakness of organisation is responsible for disunity and poor capacity to fightback, which in turn has allowed the state to divest and privatise public services, at the same time as it has demoralised the working class and opened a wide vacuum for all sorts of political opportunists and populists to scapegoat the crises on the most vulnerable layers of the working class, the migrants."

According to Sebei, it is on those basis that they reject this stance which they call a poison.

"Migrant workers are part of our class — exploited, underpaid, and struggling alongside us. Our fight is not with each other, but with the system that keeps healthcare a privilege for the few and a site for accumulation of capital," Sebei said.

Kopanang Africa Against Xenophobia (KAAX) also came out condemning the ongoing actions by Operation Dudula of preventing migrants from accessing healthcare facilities in South Africa.

Mike Ndlovu from KAAX said blocking access to healthcare, a fundamental is a violation of Section 27 of our Constitution and is unacceptable.

"These actions, which include clinic blockades, intimidation, demands for identity documents, and the violent exclusion of vulnerable individuals, including pregnant women and children, violate both South African and international law. They perpetuate a harmful rhetoric that unfairly blames migrants for systemic failures while distracting from the real causes of the healthcare crisis," Ndlovu said.

"The narrative promoted by Operation Dudula, falsely claiming migrants are the primary cause of overcrowded clinics and failing services, is contradicted by evidence. Migrants constitute only approximately 4% of public hospital admissions, primarily seeking essential obstetric and emergency care."

The Star