Not At All Fit For Humans

Move! visits a nursing college residence in East London that has been left to rot – rubbish has been piling up and conditions are unsanitary

- Johnnie Isaac

IT’S hard not to gag when the foul stench wafts over and chokes your senses. The smell of rotting garbage, raw sewage and stagnant water hangs in the air like an invisible, inescapable blanket.

It’s hardly what one expects from the neat three-storey building that is the Nerina House residence of the Lilitha College of Nursing in East London, home to more than 400 nursing students and medical professionals.

Lilitha College is a state-funded institution, which the government proudly brands as one of the largest nursing colleges in Africa.

It’s divided into five campuses across the Eastern Cape. Nerina House is home to mostly third and fourthyear nursing students.

UNSANITARY LIVING CONDITIONS

The exterior of the residence appears tidy and unremarkable, but just around the corner from the front entrance there is nothing to be proud of.

The rubbish hasn’t been collected for nearly two years, residents say. Inside the building it’s much worse.

There are more than 500 rooms, and all the unoccupied spaces are jammed full of garbage bags.

Toilets, basins and bathtubs are blocked and filthy, and the stink is overpowering. Some taps drip constantly and water leaks in the rooms are commonplace.

There is a constant buzz from the many flies, and fleas have made the residence their home too.

It’s almost impossible to imagine people living in here, much less people whose jobs it is, and will be, to look after the health of people in their communities.

The residents tell Move! they keep the doors of their rooms shut at all times in a vain attempt to keep out the flies, fleas and the rotten stench.

They speak to us on condition of anonymity as they fear losing their stipends.