Since the last election five years ago, public health in the province has been beleaguered by leadership turmoil, bad infrastructure, medicolegal claims and financial deficiencies.

Access to basic healthcare is a fundamental right guaranteed by the Constitution. But for residents of Xhora Mouth in the Eastern Cape, that constitutional right remains a mirage in some ways.

Almost four years ago, in her May 2020 budget speech, the then MEC for health, Sindiswa Gomba, promised the community a clinic.

The Xhora community consists of villages such as Nqileni, Tshezi, Folokwe and Mgojweni, about 100km from Mthatha. Villagers have to walk long distances, including crossing the Xhora River and navigating through thick bushes to get to the nearest clinic in Nkanya village, about 15km away.

When Spotlight reported on their plight in 2019, they had been campaigning for a clinic of their own for more than a decade.

That there would not, after all, be a new clinic in Xhora Mouth became clear when Nomakhosazana Meth took over from Gomba as health MEC in March 2021.

Meth made it clear in her first budget speech that the department would focus on maintaining infrastructure instead of undertaking new construction. The community of Xhora Mouth will have to wait even longer.

Spotlight looks at what else has, or has not, changed in the province's healthcare system since...