... or pay community health care workers who actually deliver a very vital aspect of primary health care decent salaries. The Bill will alleviate the shortage of workers and skilled doctors. It will not reduce litigation cases the department for negligence, violence, injuries and the killings of our people. In the Mamelodi Hospital, for example, the maternity ward, we only need seven nurses and midwives to alleviate the issue of women giving birth by themselves and when accidents happen, health care workers being blamed for the department's failure.
The Bill will not be a solution for the water crisis experienced in hospitals in Hammanskraal, Thohoyandou, QwaQwa, Middelburg and Seshego, that sees patients not being operated on because there is no water. This Bill will not garner integrity for this department that is still found to be doing heinous crimes against HIV-positive women by not only stealing their antiretrovirals, ARVs, but also sterilising them without their consent.
This Bill will not have us wake up with improved security systems to protect our medication that is stolen from our clinics every single week and the department acting shocked every time this happens.
This Bill will also not be able to stop your health care workers from turning away our young women from accessing abortion services and telling them that they can't offer it because it is not done. It will also not be more evidence that young people need pre-exposure prophylaxis, PrEP and post-exposure prophylaxis, PEP, on demand without having to experience trauma and sexual immorality for you to give them PrEP and PEP. This Bill will not deliver hearing aids to toddlers who are expected to pay R15 000 in Limpopo before getting hearing aids.
This Bill will not service wheelchairs. This Bill will not fund medical researchers or better health conditioners of minors. It won't diagnose and treat cancer patients in time. Nor will it provide children within the autism spectrum with the necessary educational developmental and psychological support.
The EFF condemns the department, the Minister of Health and the President for the collapse, corruption and failure to prioritise primary health care, prevention, education on health care, building of clinics in each ward and all the aspects as per the aspirations of the Bill which don't even need the structure to be established for these things to be done.
This Bill is merely stealing time from our people, and in essence also taking lives from our people. It is just an opportunity for the thugs to continue to loot, and this is why we reject the Bill. Thank you. [Applause.]
Ms M D HLENGWA Ms N N CHIRWA