DURBAN - IT WAS an anxious wait for a 69-yearold woman from Ixopo in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands to get her chronic medication this week.
She was supposed to fetch her medication last week from the Clicks Pharmacy at KwaMnyandu Shopping Mall, but the pharmacy was looted and vandalised during last week’s riots in KZN and Gauteng.
Busisiwe Zulu, of Mahehle in Ixopo, said she had travelled to Durban and was eventually able to get her medication at the uMlazi Clinic on Monday afternoon.
“I did not wait long in the queue before getting my medicines, and now
I am going home safe in the knowledge that I have got my medication,” she told The Mercury on Tuesday.
While Zulu’s story has a happy ending, there is anxiety and concern in many old-age homes across KZN.
Juanita Lewis, who works at the Paulpietersburg Frail Care Centre, said they were worried about the delivery of medication to the patients at the centre.
“We normally go through the doctors in accessing medication for our patients, it is the surgeons who get the medication from pharmacies,” she said this week.
The pharmacy which the centre relies on for supplies, the Medpharm Pharmacy in Newcastle, was also looted and vandalised during the riots.
“We are very worried as to what will happen in the next 10 days,” said Lewis, who has been working at the centre since 2014.
Leanne Garrett, of Marina Beach Old Age Home, said although they got a month’s supply of medication, they were concerned as July drew towards the end.
“I am a bit anxious about the supply of medication because we are talking about senior citizens here who when the medication runs out, it becomes a matter of life and death.
“The next days are going to be very crucial,” she said.
Sandra Sheppard from the South Coast also expressed concern on how the looting last week could affect senior citizens on chronic medication.
A manager at an old-age home in Pietermaritzburg said: “We simply don’t know what will happen over the next 10 days. We are basically playing the waiting game.”
Meanwhile, the country’s statutory health regulatory bodies, the SA Health Products Regulatory Authority (Sahpra), Health Professions Council of SA (HPCSA), Office of Health Standards Compliance (OHSC), SA Nursing Council (SANC) and SA Pharmacy Council (SAPC) have warned of the long-term onsequences of looting of pharmacies on the health of communities.
“Without health-care services, the requisite medicines and vaccines, we will have unnecessary deaths and cause further pandemonium, including severe damage to the economy.
“As statutory health councils, in collaboration with the National Department of Health, we are working closely to ensure that the provision of health care and essential medicines, including chronic medicines and vaccines, are restored,” the bodies said in a joint statement.
They further warned that the targeting of pharmacies, doctors’ practices, clinics and other health-care institutions in the midst of a pandemic was detrimental, especially to the old, frail and vulnerable people.
According to the Independent Community Pharmacy Association, 21 pharmacies were vandalised and looted in the recent unrest.
THE MERCURY