When the Agendas of the Minority Erect Unending Barriers, Patients Pay the Price
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
12 April 2025
No, TLC didn’t “introduce a fee.” We had no choice.* (see footnote below added for clarity on 16 April 2025)
TLC endured five years on a starvation diet—holding the line for efficient and effective healthcare delivery while selfish business interests worked relentlessly to tear it down. While the global community celebrated the service as best in class, locally, a small group worked tirelessly to dismantle it—even as the nation pleaded in person, in writing, in lost lives, and at Sibaya.
This isn’t the beginning of the end. It’s the result of refusing to collapse.
This isn’t a sudden change—it’s the crushing weight of 60 months of relentless obstruction to equitable access to financial support. Over 20 years, TLC has delivered 1.5 million outpatient visits—free of charge—with everything from medication and diagnostics to surgery, critical care, snakebite antivenom, and wheelchairs—just to name a few.
We grieve this moment. It didn’t have to go this way. There were dozens of off-ramps. Countless proposals. Repeated requests for partnership. We pleaded for something sustainable. Something equitable—for the health sector, and for the people it was meant to serve. Just a fair share for the work done—nothing more—would have kept care free for those who need it most.
But while some propagated by one publication lied about audits, twisted paperwork, politicized control, ignored hundreds of emails and communications, and sabotaged proven solutions for selfish business interests—the burden was forced onto the very patients they claimed to protect.
And yet—this is not defeat. This is a recalibration. A strategic pivot to stay alive, stay serving, and stay standing with the sick.
We will never stop championing a future where equity and compassion lead. But we will not pretend the current structure is equitable—for patients or for caregivers. Reform is urgently needed—not for politics, but to save the lives of our fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, and children. And the cost is the highest there is: lives that might still be with us, if different choices had been made.
This moment demands reflection, and it demands courage. The lives of the vulnerable cannot wait for the minority to determine Eswatini’s future. We invite leaders, communities, citizens, and partners to stand for the voiceless. Because silence, too, is a choice.
For further inquiries, please contact: Lindani Sifundza, Director of Communications, The Luke Commission +268 7808 7200
For more information: TLC and Lijoye Launch Sustainable Healthcare Model under EquiCare Network
*Clarified on 16 April 2025 0900 to reflect that TLC was forced to make the change after years without equitable access to healthcare funding. This clarification was added in response to the 12 April 2025 article which implied that the decision was voluntary. It was not.
