Workers at rehab centre in Limpopo picket over poor working conditions

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Workers at the Seshego Rehabilitation Centre outside Polokwane in Limpopo have picketed over poor working conditions. They are unhappy about the dilapidated buildings and shortage of medical personnel among other things.

The centre was built in 2015 to provide rehabilitation services to drug users.

Workers say they’ve gone months without running water. The stoves, windows and toilets are broken and the walls are cracked. One of the nurses, Mammowa Maphakela, says they are afraid of contracting airborne diseases.

“When they are busy withdrawing, they sometimes experience vomiting, diarrhea and other withdrawal symptoms or other things that might affect the workers on the ground. What we normally do in terms of vomiters or maybe they have nosebleed and so forth, we normally do the [cleaning ourselves] because you’ll never have a cleaner during the weekend. As nurses, we end up even cleaning the environment which is not within our scope.”

Social Development Department spokesperson Joshua Kgwapa says they are working to resolve infrastructure damages at the centre.

“What we have done is that we have engaged the Department of Public Works who have completed the assessment today, after this assessment they will make specifications of everything that needs to be fixed and then after that the process of looking for a service provider will then start and completed. The service provider will then come and fix, obviously we are aware of the urgency of the matter.”