Aid cuts, not migrants, causing South African healthcare crisis, says bishop

‘The situation has been caused by the current international withdrawal of funding by President Trump of America. It has affected many departments, especially health and education.’

A South African bishop said cuts to aid from the United States were damaging the country’s care for HIV and Aids patients, leaving many without access to critical drugs.

The South African health service has for decades relied on humanitarian assistance from the US worth billions of dollars, but aid cuts introduced by the Trump administration have damaged its capacity.

According to official statistics, South Africa has one of the world’s highest Aids/HIV rates, with the country’s health services struggling to meet demand for life-saving medication.

Locals have blamed migrants for the collapse of the hospitals and clinics, but Bishop Joseph Kizito of Aliwal, who heads the migrants and refugees office of the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference, said the problems were directly related to aid cuts.

“There is a lack of medication in the hospitals, but it is not because foreigners have caused it. It is the economic situation we find ourselves in,” Bishop Kizito told a local news outlet.

“The situation has been caused by the current international withdrawal of funding by President Trump of America. It has affected many departments, especially health and education. We do not have money in the clinics,” he said.

Local and international agencies have raised concerns that funding cuts to the US President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (PEPFAR), which was introduced in 2003 to deal with the HIV/Aids pandemic, had already left patients without access to life-saving drugs.

“I have seen HIV and TB projects here closing down,” Bishop Kizito said. “People are going to get a shortage of medication and now they are turning on foreigners, saying that they are taking all their medication. They don’t know the causes of the shortage. They don’t know world politics.”

South Africa has seen a resurgence of xenophobic attacks, with anti-migrant violence even affecting maternity clinics where it was reported early this month that foreign pregnant women were being barred from accessing medical attention.

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