The clinic in V section of Umlazi, south of Durban, has been closed by the Provincial Department of Health after an oversight visit by the KwaZulu-Natal legislature’s Health Portfolio Committee in August.
The committee recommended that the facility be closed as it was a converted house.
TB patients‚ babies and children all shared the same waiting room.
The clinic had served 5 000 people a month.
KwaZulu-Natal Health MEC Sibongiseni Dhlomo says one of the factors that led to the closure was overcrowding.
“When you get into this clinic you just have a passage. On each side of a passage, you have chairs lined up. One side you put children, mothers with babies as young as five days, one week, one month. And on the other side, you have a list of chairs of adults who are coming in to collect their medication; TB, ARVS, hypertension and diabetes and therefore, you are actually mixing people who are not supposed to mix. And you are getting infections crossing over from adult people to babies.”
