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A female doctor was attacked by a patient on Thursday last week at the Lillian Ngoyi Clinic in Soweto, which has also suffered from power cuts as its generators fail to work.

This busy clinic is situated next to the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital, but has only a skeleton security staff since security contracts expired earlier this year.

Last week’s incident, in which the doctor suffered injuries to her hand, follows other security problems at the clinic.

Services at the clinic have been limited for the past three weeks because of the security and power issues.

The x-ray department and the pharmacy have had to close for extended periods because the generator has run out of diesel.

Certain specialised tests also cannot be performed with the unreliable power.

Staff have raised issues repeatedly with management but there has been no improvement in this dire situation where they live in fear and patients get poor treatment.

I have alerted Gauteng Health MEC Nomathemba Mokgethi to this situation and hopefully she intervenes speedily.

Issued by DA Gauteng Shadow MEC for Health, Jack Bloom MPL