“You’ll be at the clinic by 7am, but you will leave late around 2pm starving”

Waiting all day at the clinic remains an exhausting and frustrating reality for people in the North West. While waiting times have decreased — down to an average of 3:40 hours waiting after the facility opens — the average waiting time remains over 3 hours at 53 facilities monitored, over 4 hours at 32 of those, and over 5 hours at 8 of those.

“My complaint is that you will be at the clinic as early as 7am, but they will attend to you around 11am to 12pm. You will leave late around 2pm starving” one community member told us.

Long waiting times are among ten issues raised in our new Ritshidze State of Health for North West report launched today. Watch this video to hear the rest of this community member’s story.

#NorthWestHealth

About RITSHIDZE

“Ritshidze” — meaning “Saving Our Lives” in TshiVenda — has been developed by people living with HIV and activists to hold the South African government and aid agencies accountable to improve overall HIV and TB service delivery.

Partner organisations include the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), the National Association of People Living with HIV (NAPWA), Positive Action Campaign, Positive Women’s Network (PWN) and the South African Network of Religious Leaders Living with and affected by HIV/AIDS (SANERELA+)—in alliance with Health Global Access Project (Health GAP), the Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR), and Georgetown University’s O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law.

CLICK HERE to read more and see where we work.