Patients exposed to risk as toilets remain out of service at busy Site B clinic
Patients who attend the Site B Khayelitsha Community Health Centre are being forced to contend with non-functioning toilets at a facility that, according to community representatives, serves between 25,000 and 28,000 people a month. The broken ablution facilities have reportedly been out of order for roughly two weeks, raising concerns about hygiene, dignity and infection risk at a primary healthcare site.
The information was provided to VOC News by the Khayelitsha Development Forum (KDF). KDF chairperson Mawande Jara said the facility manager had alerted the relevant authorities and facilities teams but, so far, repairs have not been completed.
“You can imagine that if their facilities are not working, patients that are accessing that facility might be exposed to diseases… it is not conducive for a health facility not to have an ablution facility,” said Jara, expressing frustration at what he called negligence by the department.
Community leaders say the problem is not merely an inconvenience. The clinic provides front-line services to a large number of patients every month, including people with chronic conditions, mothers and children, and those who require frequent visits. A functioning sanitation system is a fundamental requirement for infection prevention and control in any health setting.
Local stakeholders described a sequence of attempts to escalate the issue. The clinic management, Jara said, “have reached out to the institute and to relevant departments to sort that thing out, and up until this point this has not been resolved.” He added that while infrastructure faults can occur, the expectation is that contingency measures or swift repairs would be put in place when a facility serves tens of thousands monthly.
- Scale: Clinic serves an estimated 25,000–28,000 people per month.
- Duration: Ablution facilities reportedly out of order for about two weeks.
- Concerns: Risk of disease exposure, compromised dignity, and reduced clinic functionality.
Broken sanitation at healthcare facilities is a persistent issue nationally and within provinces. In the Western Cape, the provincial Department of Health is responsible for maintenance and for ensuring that primary care facilities meet basic operational standards. KDF called on the department to prioritise repairs and to put systems in place to prevent similar breakdowns from persisting.
Jara emphasised that the community is not asking for extraordinary measures but for proper maintenance and accountability. “All we would want to see is a functioning facility. We are not being unreasonable,” he said, noting that two weeks is an unacceptable period for essential services to remain out of commission.
| Issue | Implication |
|---|---|
| Non-functioning toilets | Hygiene and infection-control risk; patient discomfort |
| Service scale | High patient throughput increases urgency of repairs |
At the time of reporting there was no statement from the provincial Department of Health included in the source material. The department is the appropriate authority to confirm the cause of the plumbing failure, provide a timeline for repairs, and explain what interim measures are being taken to protect patients and staff.
For residents who rely on the Site B clinic, prolonged outages of basic services underline the intersection between infrastructure management and public health. Community organisations and clinic management now await a response from health authorities that will restore both facilities and confidence.
