The City’s Covid-19 homeless site has been criticised for being inadequate to shelter the most vulnerable from the Coronavirus storm, while drug addicts say they’re being left to suffer due to inadequate medical attention
April is the time of year children, young men and women are active on the Strandfontein sports grounds. Football teams would have already started training for the winter-sport season. Instead, the sports ground is now the site for a massive temporary shelter that houses homeless people who have been removed from Cape Town’s streets to limit their exposure to the virus. There are four large marquee tents. Inside this is a floor base with mattresses lined up. This is the main sleeping area.
Some have even likened it to an open-air prison. But the city has reiterated people are free to leave if they have accommodation to go to.There have also been questions asked about the location of the site. Strandfontein is on the False Bay coast. During winter months strong gales and heavy rains rip through this part of the city about 30 kilometres from the city bowl.
“When they leave there, they’ll be at risk of an overdose because they’ve lost their tolerance for opioids. Because our borders are much tighter at the moment we are liable to see a chance in the product that is out there.” He was taken to Cape Town’s Victoria hospital where he believed he could be kept under observation and receive treatment for his withdrawal symptoms. “I thought it was going to be a help for us on the streets. But it didn’t turn out to be a place where we were going to to get the help that we needed. I’m a heroin addict, and I needed help to deal with my withdrawals. I needed sleeping tablets, something for nausea, and something for diarrhoea.
“The fact is that these sites have already been identified for temporary hospitals, and isolation/quarantine facilities. These are necessary to ensure that we are prepared as the National Minister of Health, Dr Mkhize has warned, of the ‘calm before the devastating storm’. We will need these spaces as emergency hospital sites,” said Cape Town Mayor Dan Plato during a site visit to Strandfontein last week.
He said during the National State of Disaster certain individual rights have been waived to look after the health of the broader community.
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