READER LETTER | Ramathuba is right, our health system overloaded

I knew from when I saw that video of MEC for health in Limpopo, Phophi Ramathuba, that we would be flooded with messages of condemnation of her behaviour during an interaction with an illegal foreigner admitted as a patient in one of the hospitals in Limpopo.

I already knew that she would be labelled xenophobic and would be condemned by all those who sit in high places. Those who will never have to use our public health system because they can afford to use private health care. As predicted, they have condemned the MEC for telling the truth.

These people don't have a clue of what we go through as ordinary South Africans when we are forced to stand in long queues, waiting for medication and sometimes to be told it is finished. They don't have to sleep in dirty linen in hospital wards or eat bad food.

Our health system is said to be crumbling already and yet we are expected to share it with other countries who have their own health systems. When we complain we are labelled xenophobic.

Other African have clearly adopted policies that prioritise their own citizens and yet in SA it is a free for all. If you look at all those who are condemning the MEC, probably all of them are on private healthcare, they don't have to use the public health system. Why are the poor and only the poor expected to suffer so much and carry the burden of other countries?

Linda Styles Ntuli, Dobsonville