Would you pay someone to keep your place in line? “Queue marshals” at the Gugulethu dental clinic say they do it to earn a living.
|||Cape Town - Informal “queue marshals” who charge patients at the Gugulethu community dental clinic for a spot in the queue in the early hours say they are doing so to earn a living.
Mandla Mthini, 57, said that for the past nine years he had been queuing in freezing and sometimes wet weather outside the clinic from as early as midnight to save a place for patients.
“After years of not working I developed insomnia and from time to time I would accompany people to the clinic who felt unsafe in the early hours of the morning. I thought why not make this my source of income seeing that I’m already doing it? Since then I’ve been spending all my nights outside the clinic to queue for people.”
But it is not only the Gugulethu clinic where Mthini and a group of other young men charge for their services. They did the same thing at South African Social Security Agency pay point in Gugulethu where people also queued overnight.
Mthini charged R30 for each person he queued for.
“People don’t mind paying us as most of them can’t come to the clinic at that time of the day. We make a fire outside the clinic to keep warm. People love us... Patients who come to the clinic very early feel safe around us. We don’t just keep them warm around the fire, but we protect them from thugs who go around robbing people, and sometimes raping women.”
Azola Sanda joined Mthini three years ago after matriculating and failing to get a job.
“We make a living through this… to us this is more of a job. I feel that we are doing much more than just queuing for people… we protect them from crime. Even the clinic staff feel safe around us when they arrive in the morning. We even look after their cars.”
While some patients resented the marshals, others commended them.
Nowhi Mdayi, deputy chairwoman of the Gugulethu Health Forum, said the marshals were widely used, but their service often led to clashes among patients who felt cheated by the system.
“At one point we had to call the police to resolve a commotion among patients who felt the marshals were cheating them of their places,” she said.
Provincial Health Department spokeswoman Faiza Steyn has, however, denied any knowledge of the informal queue marshals who charged patients.
“The dental clinic is not aware of any informal queue marshals selling spots, which would happen before working hours,” she said.
Cape Argus