Police fire rubber bullets as EFF, Dudula clash outside Kalafong

The situation turned violent while Health Minister Joe Phaahla held a lengthy meeting with the hospital’s management.

Patients, some in wheelchairs, fled into the hospital yard to take cover. Among them was a young woman who tripped and had to be dragged to safety.

Operation Dudula supporters accused the EFF of starting the violence by hurling bricks at them.

The group’s treasurer-general Kruger Kekana held a bloodied brick while remarking “No surrender, no retreat”.

Earlier, the EFF’s Philip Makwala accused police of failing to enforce a court interdict prohibiting members of Operation Dudula from preventing patients and staff from entering the facility.

“We must put a clear message to the South African Police Service who are sleeping in the same bed as Dudula. They have obtained a court interdict but we need to fight with these people because they are not doing anything. They are not dispersing the crowd as they are instructed by the interdict,” Makwala said.

The group has staged protests outside the hospital since the beginning of August, where they have also been profiling patients by demanding identification to prove they are not foreign nationals. If they are, they are instructed to show that they are in the country legally.

Meanwhile, nursing union Denosa’s Bongani Banda has blamed authorities for failing to intervene before the matter descended into violence.

Banda says comments by Limpopo Health MEC Phophi Ramathuba, where she lambasts a Zimbabwean patient, have emboldened organisations such as Dudula to take the law into their own hands.

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