Desperate parents continue to use the services of non-compliant daycare centres across Buffalo City Metro.
The cost of child minding services and convenience (location) have been listed as some of the reasons local parents are opting to use daycare centres located in dodgy areas and which do not meet health standards.
The metro’s latest report from health inspectors has revealed that out of 91 daycare centres inspected, only 13 complied with the health standards.
Compliance notices were issued to 78 centres that did not comply and owners were advised on the health requirements to be put in place.
Highlighting a litany of problems that needed attention in various centres, the report advised owners of the centres to build facilities such as toilets, kitchens and windows for ventilation, and provide mattresses with waterproof material and also fire extinguishers, among other equipment.
Overcrowding and a failure to decrease the numbers of children attending the centres to comply with Covid-19 regulations were also some of the issues flagged by health inspectors.
The report calls for more nappy-changing spaces with water, soap and paper towels, while it stressed the importance of keeping immunisation cards for the children that attend the facilities at all times.
Every quarter, BCM’s environmental health practitioners inspect various daycare centres for monitoring and compliance.
Two weeks ago, the Dispatch reported on the deaths of two babies. Ezam Makhabane, aged five months, and Kwahlelwa Ndongeni, aged six months, died after being in the care of a crèche in Southernwood.
Social development has since closed the crèche after it was found to be unregistered.
But parents who spoke to the Dispatch said there were all kinds of daycare centres appearing because of the demand and need for help with children during working hours.
Parent Landiwe Sotsewu, who once took her daughter to the Southernwood daycare centre where the deaths occurred, said daycare centres’ rates and proximity to home played a determining factor in selecting a facility at which to leave their children.
Sotsewu said parents sometimes failed to pick up the small signals that could warn of a facility not being suitable to care for children.
“Some of us are unemployed so we would be looking for cheaper facilities. Going out job-hunting becomes difficult if you do not have a child minder, hence we resort to any available daycare centre in close proximity to our residence.
“I had taken my four-year-old to the facility in Southernwood just for a week and I paid R150.
“The one I’m using now in Parkside costs me R200 a month and there is an additional R400 per month for staff transport,” Sotsewu said.
Parents who found us gathered there two days after we learnt about the deaths insisted on still leaving their children there even though social development had recommended the place be closed down
Another parent, Sakhumzi Yokwana, said at a meeting with other parents after the Southernwood deaths that there was general concern over the condition of various childcare centres in the area.
“We all have the same goal, which is to have a safe place to leave our children when we go to work. We speak differently when problems arise.
“Parents who found us gathered there two days after we learnt about the deaths insisted on still leaving their children there even though social development had recommended the place be closed down.
“We then agreed that each parent must take responsibility for their children.”
Mziwamadoda Badi, early childhood development expert and programmes team leader at Ubunye Foundation, which promotes rural development through various projects, said the safety of childcare facilities was of utmost importance.
He said if facilities were taking care of a group of toddlers, they needed to be registered as partial care facilities.
“Those facilities need to be safe, the yard must be fenced, there must be stimulation material, and the environmental health representatives need to evaluate the place before it can be a partial care facility,” Badi said.
He said it was not only East London that was plagued by a high number of non-compliant childcare facilities.
It is happening across the province. And desperate parents will overlook the conditions of a centre at times because they need their children to be taken care of while they go to work
“It is happening across the province. And desperate parents will overlook the conditions of a centre at times because they need their children to be taken care of while they go to work,” he said.
The DA in Buffalo City urged the metro to nip non-compliance of the centres in the bud, as it was putting children’s lives at risk.
In minutes of the health and safety meeting seen by the Dispatch, DA councillor Sue Bentley, who sits on that portfolio, called on the metro to establish “a think-tank”.
Bentley said more such facilities were going to pop up if the matter was not addressed.
Despite the fact that there was non-compliance, the report, in its findings, said there were “no challenges” identified.
“If they say there are no challenges when only 13 out of 91 centres comply, then I actually don’t know what we are doing even going to inspect these places,” she said.
BCM spokesperson Samkelo Ngwenya on Friday said the metro’s role, in terms of health standards, was to ensure the centres complied.
Ngwenya said the establishment and registration as well as operation of centres were a mandate of social development.
“However the city, together with social development, makes sure that these centres comply,” he said.
“We are very much concerned about the lives of the children as no parent should be burying their own child, let alone a toddler.
“That’s why we are conducting these quarterly inspections in centres that we know and we issue compliance notices.
“It is important to note that closures of these centres lies with social development in conjunction with us.”
DispatchLIVE
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.