Western Cape gov slams ‘fake frontliners’ jumping vaccine queue
The Western Cape provincial government says it’s concerned about claims that some of the province’s residents pretended to be healthcare workers to receive a Covid-19 vaccine.
This comes after reports that some people had falsified documents to jump the queue.
Only frontliners can be inoculated in the first phase of the country’s vaccine rollout strategy.
Essential workers, the elderly and people living with comorbidities will follow in subsequent phases.
But it seems some aren’t willing to wait their turn.
It’s unclear how many reports officials have received to this effect.
Western Cape Premier Alan Winde has cautioned against trying to cheat the system.
“I did give a strong message last week that it’s extremely unacceptable for anybody to be fraudulently trying to jump the queue and we will deal with it decisively.
“I think our systems in government are pretty robust because your position is linked to your persal number but of course if anybody has information, please you must bring it forward, we must put in investigations in place and deal with it decisively,” Winde adds.
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Head of the Health Department in the province Keith Cloete says he’s equally concerned about the claims.
“We take that extremely seriously if there’s any allegations that anybody has falsified their credentials to be able to receive vaccination as part of this drive, there have been cases reported to use, we are investigating it.
“If there’s any credence to that we’ll take it very seriously because we’ll treat it in a very serious light,” says Cloete.
He adds there are checks and balances to try mitigate such cases.
Surprisingly, Health MEC Nomafrench Mbombo says healthcare workers are also desperate to get to the front of the line.
“In some cases, it not only the people that are not healthcare workers, they are. They might be registered as nurses, but they are not patient-facing, they don’t qualify on the criteria related to sequencing.
“One might be a doctor or a nurse but working with an NGO and not patient-facing or is not over 45 or does not have comorbidities.”
According to Mbombo, out of more than 1.2 million professionals - only 40 percent of the country’s healthcare workers will be provided for in the Johnson and Johnson vaccine rollout.
“It means that there will be those that will be left behind and have to wait for the main rollout.”
