Members of the LGBTQI+ community and sex workers have reported mistreatment at the hands of public health personnels. When they visit public health facilities, they claim they are not only scrutinized and humiliated but also denied treatment for chronic ailments.
A 35-year-old gay man without a job from Vosloorus in Ekurhuleni said that the care he received there led him to switch the clinic where he previously obtained his chronic medication. He has been visiting the clinic since 2019 to pick up his prescription. He claimed that only because he is homosexual did he begin to notice that they were treating him badly and that they would also refuse to provide him “simple things as lubricants.”
A 25-year-old Eastern Cape resident named Xolela Mabudla said to Sowetan that he hasn’t picked up his prescription in two months because he worries about being insulted again. Mabudla claimed that because he had been working, he had arrived to the Cacadu clinic for his medication a few days late two months prior. After twenty minutes at the front desk, he said, a nurse asked him what he wanted.
For 29-year-old Gomotsegang Mhlongo of Pretoria North, it all began five years ago when he began confiding in the nurse about his preference for guys. Ritshidze, a non-profit organization that advocates for the rights of marginalized groups like drug users, sex workers, and members of the LGBTQ community has produced a report stating that discrimination against these community members occurs in public health facilities.
