Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission engages SA’s Public Protector about its citizens barred from hospitalS

By Pindai Dube

• The Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission is working with SA’s Public Protector to address the barring of Zimbabwean citizens from accessing public hospitals and clinics.

  
  

• ZHRC chairperson Jessie Majome emphasised the need for Zimbabwe to improve its healthcare system.

  
  

• Experts highlight that cooperation between the leaders of Zimbabwe and SA is crucial to tackle the strain on healthcare systems.

The Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission (ZHRC), which plays the role of Public Protector, says it is engaging South Africa’s Public Protector with regard to the barring of Zimbabwean citizens from public hospitals and clinics.

Currently, groups like Operation Dudula and other protesters are blocking foreign nationals from using public clinics and hospitals.

They accuse the foreigners of placing extra strain on limited health services, at the expense of South Africans.

ZHRC chairperson Jessie Majome told journalists in Harare on Saturday that she was in talks with South Africa’s Public Protector, Kholeka Gcaleka, regarding the situation.

“When we had our benchmark visit with the Public Protector of South Africa recently, advocate Kholeka (Gcaleka) and myself agreed that we were going to engage in a more direct way about the issue of Zimbabweans seeking medical health in South Africa because some of them are being barred.

“We agreed that we need to sit down and talk, so that we can seek resolutions to that problem,” said Majome.

Majome added:

"For example, we need to find out what are the causes. We have Zimbabweans who live at the borders and even across. We have citizens of our countries crossing the borders back and forth, and we also have Zimbabweans who are in South Africa who are irregular immigrants, but some of them are regular migrants."

Majome added that Zimbabwe’s public hospitals needed to offer a better health delivery system, so that citizens would not cross into neighbouring countries to seek treatment.

“But, on the Zimbabwean side as well, there is a need for us regarding efficiency, to increase and improve the healthcare service delivery system, so that there are less Zimbabweans who would want to cross the border to get public health services from South Africa,” she said.

She said she was confident that, together with her South African counterpart, they would find a solution.

“These are issues that, when we work together, I have no doubt between the two of us, me and advocate Gcaleka, we can address and contribute, from a Public Protector perspective, towards resolving that problem,” she added.

Last week, prominent Zimbabwe opposition figure Tendai Biti, who is also a former finance minister, said that as long as South Africa’s government and the ANC did not confront the ruling Zanu PF party about Zimbabwe’s political crisis, citizens would continue to flock there to seek better lives.

“The Constitution of Zimbabwe protects and gives rights to citizens. One of the rights that is given is the right to health, which is spelt out in terms of section 56 of the Constitution of Zimbabwe. The right to health must be enjoyed by all citizens, whether he or she is in Zimbabwe, or is out of Zimbabwe.

Biti said:

"The long-term solution is for the ANC and South Africa to take a bold stance towards Zanu PF, so that there is a permanent resolution of the political crisis in Zimbabwe. As long as the ANC continues to see in Zanu PF a comrade, and as long as they are not prepared to confront this errant, erratic, barbaric, disastrous comrade, you have the situation where South Africa effectively is subsidising the Zimbabwe crisis."

Health experts say the leaders of Zimbabwe and South Africa have to put their heads together to find a solution.

They say governments must cooperate when it comes to providing health care to people across the border and particularly those within their own country.

They add that, from a humanitarian perspective, medical services have to be offered while they reach out to the Zimbabwe government to see how they can collaborate - because there are so many Zimbabweans in South Africa.

Zimbabwe’s health system is currently on its knees, with a shortage of medicine and poor salaries of health workers.

© August 2025 News24