Namibia: San Claim Abuse By Healthcare Workers
Members of the San community have been subjected to verbal and physical abuse as well as denial of treatment in healthcare facilities, Amnesty International yesterday announced.
In a recently released report, Amnesty International’s director for East and Southern Africa, Deprose Muchena, said it’s time the authorities stopped neglecting the San and recognised their right to health and ensured access to healthcare like all other people in Namibia.
“San people told Amnesty International that health workers regularly showed preferential treatment to patients from other ethnic groups,” the report said. Particularly pressing was the San’s vulnerability to tuberculosis (TB) and its multi-drug resistant strain.
Amnesty International said the government has failed to take meaningful steps to ensure that the San community in the Omaheke and Otjozondjupa regions have access to health facilities.
One patient told Amnesty International: “Nurses talk to us in English and also give facial expressions that let you know that they don’t want to help.”
Another San person was accused of lying about their symptoms when they complained of TB-related ailments.
“I told them that my back is painful, they told me I want to get a TB grant that’s why I was complaining about [my] chest and back,” the patient told Amnesty International.
The report further said that language barriers are a challenge to receiving medical care.
“Most healthcare workers are neither San nor fluent in any of the San languages, which means patients cannot make their symptoms understood or receive treatment instructions in their languages,” the report states.
A nurse at Tsumkwe Clinic observed that San patients are “afraid to come to the clinic” and “don’t stand up for themselves” when they are mistreated.
“For years, Namibian authorities have ignored the healthcare needs of the San people including those battling tuberculosis, leaving them at the risk of death,” said Muchena.
Namibia is ranked eighth globally and fifth in Africa among countries with a high TB burden and with an incidence rate of 486 per 100 000 people. According to Amnesty, studies indicate that the burden of TB among the San people is almost 40% higher than the national average.
Amnesty stated that thousands of San people are falling through the cracks because Namibian authorities do not have alternatives put in place to ensure healthcare facilities are located close to San communities.
“When they are available, primary healthcare facilities are under-staffed, under-equipped and lack sufficient medical supplies to adequately treat patients,” said Muchena
The international organisation said with poor road networks the marginalised community has to travel up to 80 kilometres to get to the nearest hospital or clinic.
The health ministry issued a statement yesterday saying to address the distances to the nearest laboratory resources, GeneXpert equipment was installed outside the established Namibia Institute of Pathology system.
“Tsumkwe Clinic and Mangetti Health Centre are the only places in Namibia that perform rapid molecular diagnostics as point of care (GeneXpert) for TB. There are resources committed to maintain these services, including consumables up to 2023 through global fund funding,” the statement read.
In addition, the testing instruments were also installed in the Otjozondjupa outreach van to cater for rapid responses to outbreaks and other community outreach activities.
The Otjozondjupa region, with technical support from the National TB Programme conducted a community-wide screening for TB at Tsumkwe East in 2020.
“The Ministry of Health and Social Services in 2021 completed construction of prefabricated buildings to house consulting rooms and a laboratory at Tsumkwe Clinic. A second phase of the community-wide screening for TB is planned to commence on 11 October 2021 and is expected to cover the whole Tsumkwe constituency,” the statement reads.
By Namibian.
