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Thupeyo Muleya, Beitbridge Bureau 

RAMPANT vandalism and theft of key equipment, mostly solar panels and related accessories, at Beitbridge’s 16 rural clinics have reportedly worsened the shortage of primary health care facilities in the district.

Beitbridge district has an estimated population of 250 000 people, with about 165 000 living in the rural component where some walk between 20km and 50km to access the nearest health institution.

According to World Health Organisation (WHO) standards people must not walk for more than 8km to access primary health care services.

The district – according to healthcare providers – needs 16 more clinics and the few that are there are either without drugs, under-staffed or inaccessible by many villagers.

Further, in places where power supplies have been tampered with, nursing staff have resorted to moving vaccines which need refrigeration to the main hospital in Beitbridge, and this is presenting challenges in cases of emergency.

Since the beginning of the year, a syndicate targeting solar panels and related accessories has hit Swereki, Lilombe, Mapili and Chamnangana clinics.

In separate interviews yesterday members of the community lambasted the Beitbridge Rural District Council (BBRDC) which owns the infrastructure for taking a business as usual approach while things were getting out of hand.

Mr Jabulani Makhado, a member of the Vhembe Development Association that is made up of rural people from Beitbridge, said the state of affairs in most health centres was deplorable.

“These (health centres) are Rural District Council entities and the local authority is very lax in protecting the centres,” he said.

“You will note that most of RDC security personnel come from the same rural areas where thefts are occurring. 

‘‘Why can’t they (RDC) second some of the staff from the areas to man those facilities rather than taking all of them to their town offices. 

“This is a sad development considering that the council receives tax from the rural areas and uses the funds for other issues minus the centres that generate money. 

“The staff at the centres are also not serious about securing their places of work. Thieves ransack the entities and we always fail to have leads. Usually criminals connive or get access to facilities by being aided by staff at centres to come up with a modus operandi.”

Mr Makhado said he suspected that some employees from the health centres were harbouring some of the criminals.

He said although the thefts had been occurring consistently, the local authority had not made an effort to intervene.

Beitbridge paramount Chief Vho Stauze, born David Mbedzi, said the theft and vandalism of key infrastructure in the district was alarming.

He said people should jealously guard against criminal activities that seek to deprive or worsen issues of service delivery in the area.

“We are equally disturbed by this trend of theft from the few clinics that we have.

‘‘We are going to sit down with fellow traditional leaders including the headman and map the way forward,” said the traditional leader.

Beitbridge Rural District Council chief executive officer, Mr Peter Moyo, said the local authority had engaged the police to beef up security at the health centres and other key infrastructure in the area.

“We would love to deploy security guards to all key points but our revenue levels are very thin. We have engaged the police and other security arms who have deployments in those areas to complement our efforts.

“At the same time, we urge members of the community led by their traditional leaders to jealously guard these properties. The infrastructure may belong to the local authority on paper, but let’s all work together in protecting these against theft or vandalism,” he said.