When Médicins Sans Frontières, the humanitarian medical organization, took over a community clinic in Tshwane, South Africa’s administrative capital in 2019, the idea was to provide a refuge for undocumented migrants, asylum-seekers, and refugees searching for health services.
South Africans were also encouraged to attend, but the clinic was designed as a safe harbor for refugees and migrants who were facing discrimination when they tried to access health care services.
Musa Ndlovu, who ran the clinic for MSF, watched as it became a flashpoint within the community. Local residents, who had come to identify the facility as a place only for foreign nationals, also recognized that it might be providing better services than they were receiving in their local clinics. They began asking, Ndlovu said, "How can you give the royal treatment to the outsider, when we also need services?”
About the author
Andrew Green@_andrew_green
Andrew Green, a 2025 Alicia Patterson Fellow, works as a contributing reporter for Devex from Berlin.
