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Gauteng government plays broken telephone as ill-informed law enforcement turns residents away from inefficient screening and testing centres
Lack of coordination between government departments, and failure to inform residents and the police, is undermining bold government efforts to roll out Covid-19 coronavirus mass screenings, testings, tracing and tracking programmes.
Compounding the frustration are the health, police and defence ministries not being on the same wavelength.
SA Police Service (SAPS) and SA National Defence Force (SANDF) officers enforcing the lockdown were – instead of working together with communities – turning back residents attempting to get screened and, if possible, tested for the virus in accordance with instructions from the health department.
“We were not informed that there were screening and testing stations at the malls and shopping centres. To our surprise, we saw masses of people on the streets.
We thought they were breaking lockdown measures and we turned them back,” said an SAPS officer, who spoke to City Press on condition of anonymity.
After being made aware of the screening and testing stations in the West Rand areas of Carletonville and Fochville, the SAPS officer expressed frustration about the police being regarded as villains by community members for having turned back dozens of people seeking to comply with the provincial government’s call.
West Rand residents told City Press that this had resulted in people being forced to remain indoors or being assaulted while on their way to fulfil a call that had been made by the provincial health department.
For those who managed to navigate their way past the obstacles, which they described as “power-crazed SAPS and SANDF officials”, some faced more frustrations as some testing stations failed to open their doors. At those stations that did, there were lengthy delays, adding to the frustrations.
More worryingly, members of the mayoral committee (MMC), health workers and those manning the stations had no idea what their screening and testing targets were.
These mass programmes were put into place after last week’s pledge by the Covid-19 ministerial national command team, which, through President Cyril Ramaphosa, made sweeping declarations, including a proposed roll-out of mass screening, testing and tracing measures that would lead to a drastic increase in the number of people who would be tested daily, from a measly 2 000 a day to more than 50 000.
In compliance, the Gauteng health department announced on Wednesday that screening and testing stations would be set up in the West Rand, which has a population of a little more than 800 000.
The screenings and testing were scheduled for Carletonville Mall, at Shoprite Extension 9 as well as at Fochville President Hyper, among other locations.
For some reason, the screening and testing centres at Carletonville Mall, Carletonville Civic Centre and at Shoprite Extension 9 never opened to the public, which had been informed and were waiting.
Those centres that eventually opened their doors did so after lengthy delays. One such testing station was the one in Fochville, which was scheduled to start at 9am but opened at least two and a half hours later.
A nurse stationed at the Fochville site, who was left waiting in her car with the screening equipment but without a gazebo under which they were to do their job, said the delay was because a nongovernmental organisation (NGO) that was providing the gazebo was delayed.
“There is no communication between the district health department and the NGO. I’ve been sitting I’m my car with the screening equipment and can’t do anything to assist community members, who have been coming to where we should have set up ages ago,” said the nurse.
Speaking to City Press while doing an oversight visit at the Fochville station, West Rand District Municipality MMC Buyiswa Xulu, as well as ML Skosana, Merafong City Local Municipality Health and Social Development MMC, said they were unaware of what the targets were for the numerous testing centres in their district.
Lwazi Manzi, spokesperson for Health Minister Zweli Mkhize, said the miscommunication and the lack of communication were a provincial issue and suggested that we direct our questions to the provincial health department, which was not readily available for comment.
But the MMCs said that government’s mass action to curb the spread of the virus was being made obsolete by “township residents who continue to refuse to adhere to lockdown measures”.
“The only time our people stay indoors is when they see the army. Besides that, as you can see today, they are forever on the streets, doing Lord knows what,” Xulu said.
SAPS national spokesperson Brigadier Vishnu Naidoo agreed that there were certain areas where compliance with lockdown regulations was proving to be a challenge.
“There has been non-compliance in certain areas. We all know these areas, but I won’t point fingers,” Naidoo said.
“We are deploying [SAPS officers] to make sure that everyone complies with the regulations of this lockdown.”
Challenges
Once screening got under way at Fochville and at the Carletonville Civic Centre, some of those who made their way either after experiencing Covid-19-related symptoms or out of curiosity complained that the health workers “prefer to only screen and not test, even when you have symptoms”.
Most who came to the sites were also not informed beforehand of the difference between screening and testing, and assumed that they were going to get tested.
A resident who came for a test at the civic centre said she was experiencing some of the symptoms of Covid-19, including coughing, and was worried about the health of her children. After being examined and her temperature found to be normal, the woman was told to go home and self-quarantine and only call a doctor if her symptoms worsened.
Manzi said the target for the national health department was to place a greater focus on “densely populated areas first”.
She added that the extension of the national lockdown by Ramaphosa to April 30 was “also so that we can have everybody screened, not necessarily tested, but screened”.
Martha Chuene (51), a resident of Khutsong, a township in the West Rand, complained mainly about fellow residents not being informed about the testing centres in her immediate surrounding areas.
“The virus does scare me because I think we, the people in townships, are most at risk because no one ever remembers that we exist,” she told City Press.
“It pains me because I have children and I don’t know if we will survive this or not.”
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