More deceit, manipulation, and bullshit ! Integrity is virtually unknown amongst blacks. Nurse bust selling baby formula that should be free for poor mothers
Control of milk stock investigated
THE Times has bust a staff member at a Soweto clinic discovered selling government-issued baby milk formula to an HIV-positive mother who should have received it free.
While tiny babies were being fed watered-down maize meal and black tea during this month’s formula shortage, the woman, known as “Sister Thandi”, was allegedly selling the little stock left at the Chiawelo Clinic for R150 for a six-pack.
Sister Thandi was fired yesterday following The Times’ investigation.
FIRED: ‘Sister Thandi’ sold government-issued milk formula to a mother
Gauteng health MEC Qedani Mahlangu apologised this week to mothers who, for more than a week, could not feed their babies because the department had failed to pay formula supplier Nestlé for six months. Nestlé stopped delivering baby formula to clinics and state hospitals last month.
On Friday, The Times visited Chiawelo Clinic and found a 28-year-old HIV-positive mother, whom we cannot name, desperately in search of formula for her two-month-old baby. She had been feeding her tiny son black tea.
The woman said she had bought formula from another employee at the Chiawelo Clinic in April, despite knowing that she should not have to pay for it.
After being turned away by a clinic nurse who claimed that there was no milk, she was approached by one of the clinic staff and told that, if she had money, “they could make a plan”.
HIV-positive mother buys baby-milk formula, which she should have received free, at the Chiawelo Clinic, in SowetoHIV-positive mothers risk passing on the virus to their babies through their breast milk and rely on free formula from state clinics and hospitals to feed their children.
Last month, when the HIV-positive mother asked the clinic employee, whose name she does not know, how much she had to pay for formula, she was told R150.
On Monday, The Times accompanied the young mother to the clinic to buy more formula and Sister Thandi told her that she could not sell it to her while “the other people were around”. She was told to “come tomorrow”.
At 8.30am yesterday, the 28-year-old mother joined the queue to receive formula at Chiawelo Clinic’s maternity ward.
When her turn came, she approached Sister Thandi and paid for six 400g tins of Nan Pelargon.
She did not have her clinic card with her and, in normal circumstances, would have been denied formula.
“I went to her office and told her I wanted to buy the milk. I paid her the R150. No questions were asked and within five minutes I got it.”
The Times phoned the provincial health department to report the irregularity and an official, who introduced herself as Gugu, was sent to the clinic.
Gugu, who refused to reveal her surname but said she was from the “district office”, confronted Sister Thandi in the clinic, which The Times was barred from entering.
She confirmed that the formula bought yesterday was from government stock and should have been given free to poor HIV- positive mothers.
Gauteng health department spokesman John Louw, said Sister Thandi was an Aids counsellor at the clinic and was employed by a non-government organisation contracted by the health department. He refused to name the organisation.
He said Sister Thandi was taken to the police station by clinic security officers and a charge of theft was laid.
When her organisation was told of her trade in formula, Louw said, it dismissed her immediately.
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