SAVE THESE SOULS

Given the choice to either save lives or award salary increases to a select few, government has evidently opted for pleasing the more privileged.

Sadly, as these beneficiaries sashay all the way to the bank waving their secret adjustments, hundreds of Phalala Fund and the Civil Servants Medical Referral Scheme patients lie abandoned on their hospital beds, begging for a lifeline that does not seem to be coming anytime soon. For them death seems certain. All this because government has accumulated a E170 million bill that has led to medical service providers in South Africa refusing to accept patients under the schemes over the past months. Businesses have also been placed on ‘death row’ with unpaid bills for services rendered. Such is the choice of our decision makers in times of crises.

This and many other life threatening situations are currently haunting our economy but the greatest tragedy resides in the lack of logical prioritisation in the use of the limited resources at our disposal. Like the cancer patients, we have all been eagerly awaiting government to come out with a comprehensive strategy to counter the crisis by reprioritising spending, in ways that save lives as well as our fragile economy. This financial year, already 16 patients have died. The Director of Health Services, Dr Vusi Magagula said government was doing all it can to make payment. Really? We are nowhere near convinced. When the Finance Minister, Martin  Dla-mini, presented the 2016/17 national budget speech, he christened it a people’s budget. We questioned this because the allocations leaned more towards security.

With the rising public discontentment, it is becoming apparent that the current strife was well anticipated. We do not condone violence and we urge the populace to exercise restraint when confronted with heartbreaking actions by the State.
 Our last hope for intervention has to be the head of government. If there ever was a time for the prime minister to lead the way and show us just how much people’s lives matter to him and his team, it is now. From today we are counting just how many lives Cabinet has chosen to save or allowed to die!

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