The DA is ratcheting up its campaigning in Nelson Mandela Bay, calling for freedom of choice when it comes to the immunisation of babies.
DA mayoral candidate, Atholl Trollip, led a march Monday morning by DA supporters to the Department of Health, where a silent picket protest was held.
The party's provincial spokesperson on health, Celeste Barker, says a decision by the Health Department to withdraw the provision of immunisation medicines for babies to private clinics could have dire consequences.
She says private clinics that receive subsidised medication could face closure.
"This is fundamentally a rights-based health event. The South African Constitution enshrines the rights of all our people to- inter alia - decent healthcare and freedom of choice.
However these rights can be - and are - infringed when the state makes ill considered decisions without reflection and forward planning," said Barker.
"This appears to be the case in the story of access to baby immunisation in the Nelson Mandela Bay Metro (NMBM)," she added.
Barke says "the province now has achieved an 85% coverage rate, access to baby immunisation has been largely successful, service delivery looks good and by all appearances public private MOU's support moms and babies of the Eastern Cape. Unfortunately this success is jeopardised by the DOH's decision to stop providing private clinics with immunisation stock. The implications of this decision are serious and life threatening," she said.
But, Eastern Cape Health Department spokesperson, Sizwe Kupelo, countered saying that the Superintendent-General made the decision to stop suppying immunisation medicine to private clinics because there is no formal agreement on this between the parties.
"We are saying people can still go and get this service free of charge from the state clinics as opposed to being charged at a private service point. So, that is the position of the Department because we supply and then they (patients) get charged. It doesn't matter what you call it there is a charge and the policy of government is that primary health care is free in South Africa, so people cannot be charged for a service at that level," he said.
