This comes after recent protests by local residents demanding that the hospital’s new chief executive step down

The petition in question was initiated by the People’s Health Movement, not the South African Medical Association or the Rural Doctors Association.

Primary healthcare barely exists outside our urban centres, and apartheid-ordained inequality is stark.

The community healthworker system is in chaos, leaving vulnerable communities at risk.

KwaZulu-Natal’s health minister Peggy Nkonyeni has been accused by the Treatment Action Campaign of orchestrating a ”witch-hunt” against two doctors.

Samson Mashaba struggles to retain his sense of humour as he waits to see his doctor. ”If you’re unlucky, you’ll die standing here,” says the 69-year-old as he surveys the queue…