No SANDF facilities on government quarantine “master list”

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A “master list” running to more than 60 pages of quarantine facilities nationally for COVID-19 positive patients does not contain a single SA National Defence Force (SANDF) facility or site.

The absence of particularly any SA Military Health Service (SAMHS) facilities from the Presidential Infrastructure Co-ordinating Commission (PICC) list compiled by the Department of Public Works and Infrastructure (DPWI) has not gone unnoticed with at least one Member of Parliament preparing questions.

Philip van Staden, Freedom Front Plus (FF+) health spokesman, early in the national state of disaster, had a question for Defence and Military Veterans Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula on border protection and prevention of the coronavirus. He is still waiting to find out from the Minister if any SAMHS personnel are deployed alongside soldiers on border patrol, whether they test undocumented persons (illegal aliens) and if soldiers are tested for the virus.

As far as the PICC so-called “master list” is concerned his first question to Minister Patricia de Lille will be “why are there no military facilities or sites?”

This becomes more pertinent in the light of the latest edition of the national defence force publication “SA Soldier” carrying a feature article on quarantine and isolation measures implemented at the SA Army centre of excellence Infantry School in Oudtshoorn, Western Cape.

The article says, in part, “Infantry School is ready and prepared to implement all preventative measures to curb transmission and spread of Coronavirus in the base and proximate Oudtshoorn community. ‘We are part of the bigger community in Oudtshoorn, so when provincial hospitals are overwhelmed with cases of Coronavirus it will be expected that this base caters not only to the soldiers but also to community members,’ the school’s quarantine base commander Lieutenant Kutlwano Kelehetswe said”.

The giveaway, Van Staden maintains, are the words “provincial hospitals overwhelmed” and “base catering to community members”. “Surely that indicates Infantry School should be on what we are led to believe is the national list of government approved quarantine and isolation facilities,” he said.