Mary Alexander • 15 August 2025

A Zimbabwean man died after he was “dragged out of a public hospital by South African Dudula and March March members” claims a caption of a photo circulating on social media since 2 August 2025.

They said he “should go back to Zimbabwe or to a private hospital”, it adds. “[H]ere in the photo of his young daughter standing before his lifeless body.”

In the photo, a man lies on a pavement outside a closed gate at night. A woman stands beside him. Behind the gate we see a long, low building with light coming through its windows.

Zimbabwe, one of South Africa’s northern neighbours, is the top source of migration into South Africa. Census 2022 estimates that more than a million Zimbabweans live in the country, but make up just 1.6% of the total population of 62 million.

Since 2022, the anti-migrant social movement Operation Dudula (isiZulu for “force out” or “knock down”) has tried to block migrants from entering public hospitals and clinics. The campaign has recently ramped up with support from the new March and March movement. It has had dire consequences, with pregnant women forced to give birth alone and babies being denied vaccines.

Healthcare is a human right in South Africa, protected by the constitution and available to all.

South African man survives TB emergency

The claim about the photo has been posted across X (here and here) and Facebook (here, here, here and here). It’s attracted hateful comments on Zimbabweans:

• Good. If they don’t go back main will end up like him. Party is over. Hamba khaya zimbos [Go home Zimbabweans].
• South Africans are happy with the news…. can that happen everyday till they all go back to Zimbabwe.
• [S]outh Africa owes no zimbo free Healthcare
• [I]f he was in his sheethole country he would be still alive i heard you’ve got hospitals
• He should have died in Rhodesia [colonial Zimbabwe].

But other social media users have dismissed the claim as false:

• This is not true and you are talking nonsense, stop this bullshit that you are trying to do.
• This pic is old stupid … You don’t even where does this happen setlaela ke wena [you are a fool].
• Fake. Try again.
• STOP LYING. This photo has been making rounds since years ago about clinic operation hours.
• You’re an opportunistic liar, misusing information to earn your supper …

The photo used in the claim is at left and a Google Street View of the MUCPP Community Health Centre in Mangaung, its gate open, at right. It is the same building, confirming the report that the man was turned away because the clinic only admits maternal emergencies after hours.

Two comments include the link to an article headlined “No more 24-hour health services for some Mangaung residents”, published by Health-e News on 4 February.

Mangaung, which includes the city of Bloemfontein, is a municipality in the Free State province.

The article includes a similar photo of the same man lying on the same pavement next to the same woman.

It says that on the night of 2 January the daughter of the man in the photo brought him to the MUCPP Community Health Centre in Mangaung. He has TB and had suffered some kind of seizure.

The pair were turned away because the clinic has cut back on general emergency care, now only taking maternal emergencies after hours. A passing taxi driver lifted them home. The man was then taken by ambulance to hospital, where after a three-week stay he recovered.

At the time, the incident was reported on a local blog as well as on X and Facebook. The man, whose surname is given as Monnapula, is likely a South African.

A Google Street View of the MUCPP Community Health Centre confirms that it is the same building in the photo.

The claim is false.

The post Zimbabwean dies after Dudula members drag him from South African hospital? No, photo unrelated appeared first on South Africa Gateway.

MARY ALEXANDER • 21 JUNE 2024

Drinking hot water can save your life, claims an Afrikaans message circulating on Facebook.*

“Dokters het bevestig dat warm water effektief is om gesondheidsprobleme te help verminder,” it reads. This translates as: “Doctors have confirmed that hot water is effective in helping reduce health problems.”

The message then lists the “health problems” drinking hot water can supposedly “reduce”. They include life-threatening conditions such as high and low blood pressure, cardiac arrhythmia, epilepsy, high cholesterol, asthma and blocked arteries.

The message also claims that drinking cold water can cause heart attack, liver disease and cancer.

But is it sound health advice?

‘A palpable display of folly’

The claim has been circulating online for years.

A 2016 Instagram post, in English, begins with almost the same wording. “MEDICAL ALERTNESS. Dr. D. Mensah Asare BENEFITS OF WARM WATER. A group of Japanese Doctors confirmed that warm water is 100% effective in resolving some health problems.”

The claim was also posted online in 2017 and 2018. And it has been repeatedly debunked.

A 2020 report on health disinformation by Nigeria’s University of Lagos had this conclusion about the claim: “Although water in itself is not harmful to the body, claiming that water is effective in resolving the listed diseases is misleading and may prevent people from seeking necessary medical attention.”

And a 2020 fact-check by Nigeria’s Centre for Investigative Reporting quoted Dr Femi Ajose of the Olabisi Onabanjo University Teaching Hospital with a less polite opinion.

“This is a palpable display of folly,” he said.

“How will just one remedy be a panacea to various ailments? This is highly non-scientific and hence doesn’t hold water, at all. These are just some myths they sell to people to collect their hard-earned money.”

Drinking water is healthy. But there’s no evidence that drinking water of any temperature will cure or cause serious disease.

* Some Facebook and Instagram users may have deleted their posts after Meta’s Third-Party Fact-Checking Program rated their claims as untrue.

Published by Africa Check on 27 June 2024

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MARY ALEXANDER • 20 JUNE 2024

“CAME TO SA ON A WHEELBARROW AND LEFT WITH R17 MILLION!”

That’s the common caption for a photo of a man carrying a heavily pregnant woman in a wheelbarrow, circulating on social media in South Africa since late May 2024.*

It continues: “The court has awarded R17,2 million to an undocumented Zimbabwean woman whose newborn suffered cerebral palsy as a result of negligence by hospital staff at public hospital in Limpopo.”

One user making the claim is the X/Twitter account Dudula News. The account is allied to South Africa’s anti-migrant social movement Operation Dudula. Its post has been liked more than 1,000 times.

Zimbabwe lies on the northern border of South Africa’s Limpopo province. Operation Dudula opposes the migration of people from elsewhere on the continent into South Africa. In isiZulu, “dudula” means “force out” or “push back”.

Supporters of the movement complain that migrants take local jobs and use public services such as healthcare.

But does the photo really show a pregnant woman who came to South Africa in a wheelbarrow, and left the country with R17 million after a Limpopo hospital’s negligence left her newborn brain damaged?

Photo snapped in Zimbabwe capital in 2008

A reverse image search reveals that while the pregnant woman in the wheelbarrow was Zimbabwean, the photo doesn’t show her “coming to South Africa”. More than this, the photo was shot in December 2008 – almost 16 years ago.

It was taken by veteran Associated Press photographer Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi. On the AP Newsroom website, its caption reads: “Misheck Bunyira carries his wife, Janet in the late stages of pregnancy to hospital by wheelbarrow in Epworth, Harare, Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2008.”

Harare is Zimbabwe’s capital, and far from South Africa. The woman was being taken by wheelbarrow to a hospital in Zimbabwe, not South Africa.

In April 2024 Dudula News posted the same photo on X with the caption: “ZIMBABWE: MAN TRANSPORTS WIFE TO SA HOSPITAL! A Zimbabwean man with a good education wheeled his pregnant wife to a hospital in Musina.”

Musina is a town in Limpopo on the Zimbabwe border. But again, the claim is not true.

North West high court orders damages for 2013 negligence

There is some truth to the claim that a woman originally from Zimbabwe whose newborn was left brain damaged by hospital negligence was recently awarded R17 million in damages by a South African court.

But the negligence was in 2013, the hospital in North West – the province to the west of Limpopo – and the woman is not “undocumented”. And she’s not the woman in the photo.

On 16 May 2024 the North West high court ordered the head of the province’s health department to pay the mother of a severely brain-damaged 12-year-old child R17.3 million for the negligence of the hospital where the child was born.

The child suffered oxygen deprivation at birth, cannot sit unsupported and cannot speak. The court found the health department was “100% responsible” for the child’s disability.

The mother came to South Africa from Zimbabwe in 2005. She has had her Zimbabwean exemption permit since 2010, and so is not “undocumented”.

The health department’s lawyers had argued that she should be paid lesser damages because she is a Zimbabwean citizen. This was rejected by the judge, who said South Africa’s constitution gave equal protection to all.

The false and xenophobic claim mangles two separate events.

* Some Facebook and Instagram users may have deleted their posts after Meta’s Third-Party Fact-Checking Program rated their claims as untrue.

Published by Africa Check on 24 June 2024

The post Zim mom came to South Africa in wheelbarrow and left with millions? No, xenophobic claim a mashup of separate events appeared first on South Africa Gateway.