The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) led by Julius Malema have called for the removal of the Member of Executive Council (MEC) of Health in the Limpopo Province, Phophi Ramathuba after a video in which she tells a Zimbabwean patient to get medical treatment in Zimbabwe went viral. She is accused of violating the ethics of the health profession which require health caregivers to offer services to everyone despite their “age, disease or disability, creed, ethnic origin gender, nationality, political affiliation, race, sexual orientation, social standing or any other factor…” In a statement seen by Pindula News, the EEF said Ramathuba was unprofessional. Reads the statement dated Wednesday, 24 August 2022:
EFF CALLS FOR THE REMOVAL OF MEC OF HEALTH IN LIMPOPO PHOPHI RAMATHUBA
The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) calls for the immediate removal of the cynical, arrogant and morally bankrupt MEC of Health in Limpopo, Phophi Ramathuba, for her inhumane comments towards a sickly patient in a hospital in Bela Bela, Limpopo.
Ramathuba, whose cruelty reveals she is posturing as a medical Doctor was recorded humiliating and cross-examining a patient who was due for surgery because she was receiving medical care in South Africa while she hails from Zimbabwe. The hateful comments, which were in full view of individuals who laughed at the merciless shaming of a patient, reveal a shocking hatred for a fellow human being by someone tasked with protecting and saving human life.
The Afrophobic attack by Ramathuba on a bed-ridden patient is cruel and malicious and has no justification. It is a slippery slope because health rights are human rights and to attempt to rationalise the denial of the provision of healthcare on the basis of someone’s nationality, will lead to gross human violations whose logic is pure hatred.
It will graduate from denial of health care on the basis of nationality, to the denial of healthcare on the basis of tribe and provincial origin, and ultimately a denial of healthcare on the basis of one’s contribution to the tax revenue that is meant to ensure that all people are provided with basic human rights.
Ramathuba is a reckless populist, who is joining the pretentious and opportunistic campaign by the ANC to shift the responsibility of a collapsing healthcare sector and degeneration in all spheres of South Africa on so-called foreign nationals. She is taking cue from her xenophobic principal Aaron Motsoaledi, and the various officials within the ANC, who are scapegoating their failures in governance on African people.
We call on the removal of Ramathuba as an MEC, as she has clearly violated the integrity of a patient and undermined the Hippocratic Oath, by causing intentional harm and humiliation to a patient. She is unfit to hold that office, and must be released to practice her hatred of African people outside of the levers of state power.
This so called Minister of Healthy is a worthy devil worshiper from the deepest side of hell! She is ice bag insensitive and deserves no licence to practice anywhere on the planet.She should have phoned Emmerson Mnangagwa in nstead of tormenting a patient destined for an op.How do you feel to add unrest to someone already uncomfortable by her situation ; how she relaxed and entertained the media using the dying woman as a punching bag is completely hallowing !
The SA government knows that there are foreigners in SA that are not legal and they do go to the hospitals to get treated for free like the SA citizens.This has been the case from time immemorial ,it dates back to the time of apartheid.So,for a doctor who is full of xenophobic ideas ,to order those foreign patients to pay,is against the values of SA which was liberated by Mandela and those foreigners that that evil doctor is ordering the hospital to make them pay.For her to mention that she cannot be treated in Zimbabwe for free ,its not true.Of course,there is a fee charge for all Zimbabweans to be attended to ,but even that ,she cannot be discriminated against and made to pay more than indigenous citizens of Zimbabwe because she would be taken as a foreigner.She has no proof of that and has never experienced it.Further ,there is no one case of a foreigner that has experienced that in Zimbabwe.In Zimbabwe ,dating back to the period of Rhodes,foreigners have always been welcome and up-to-date.No one discriminates against any foreigner in Zimbabwe.Furthermore, those hospitals do not belong to President Ed or any individual or any political party.They are establishments ,solely established to render public services ,for public utilitarian purposes.So,anyone can just walk in and get treated.The government has no sanctioned any people from not being treated there.It is not an excuse for her to start to claim that Zimbabweans cannot allow her to get treated free in Zimbabwe,therefore she is justified to make them pay.For that matter she has not been told by the SA government to enforce such a draconian policy.During the Covid time,the SA government mandated all hospitals to help foreigners .No country can let a foreigner die whilst domiciled in its soil ,just because they do not have money to pay their hospital bills.Of course , many western countries have such laws that demand that foreigners pay ,but that is not enforced in any country .Thus because they put the life of a person first .Just imagine if the UK was to refuse all illegal foreigners treatment,how many would die?.It is obvious to all reasonable people that that Dr is motivated by xenophobia rather than by SA government policies.She is an evil person.