Sunday Times (Johannesburg) - July 9, 2006
Victor Khupiso

Sister Rose Letwaba - who won the national Cecilia Makiwane award for nursing excellence in 2001 - faces disciplinary action for alleged moonlighting, corruption and theft.

But Letwaba, who is adored by the grandmothers of Aids orphans to whom she delivers food parcels, says she is innocent and the only thing she admits to is that her other job is as an unpaid charity worker.

She has been transferred from Alexandra's East Bank Clinic to the Jeppe Mental Health Clinic pending the outcome of her disciplinary inquiry.

When residents heard about her move this week they thronged the clinic, demanding answers.

Letwaba said she was told by officials from the Health Department that she must stop her charity work because this amounted to moonlighting. She also learned that she was being investigated for alleged theft and corruption.

Letwaba started a support group for grandmothers of Aids orphans 10 years ago after discovering that many of her patients were not visiting the clinic regularly enough.

She started a vege-table gardening project and raised money for them in her spare time.

At the clinic this week, residents demanded to know who would look after them if Letwaba left. A group of angry grannies wept openly. They said there would be no future for them and their grandchildren if Letwaba left.

"We are all doomed," said Sibongile Moroka, 68, a grandmother of seven orphans.

"Who is going to help us now? I can't afford to support so many children alone. I'm unemployed," she said.

"Everybody is outraged. They should leave our nurse alone."

Letwaba said she received a letter from the department in which she was told she was being investigated.

"It does not state the charges. I've heard that it was for stealing food and money that had been donated to the clinic," she said. "I still don't know the basis of those allegations."

She refused to elaborate on the allegations, but did say "the truth will come out".

Another angry grandmother, Joyce Mosheou, 75, threatened to "dump" her eight orphaned grandchildren at the offices of the Health Department.

"I won't be able to look after them alone. This is cruelty at its highest level. For all these years she has been our angel," she said.

''I see no reason why she must be stopped from helping us. I couldn't believe it when she told us she was leaving the clinic. We are starving right now because she has been told that her work with us is illegal."

A weeping Mosheou also said other grandparents planned to drop off their charges at the Department of Health offices.

"This is what all of us intend doing. The department must intervene because it is clear that there is a crisis at the clinic," she said.

Health Department spokesman Zanele Zungu told Metro that Letwaba had been given a precautionary transfer by the department "after serious allegations of misconduct surfaced against her".

"The department has launched an investigation into the matter and cannot comment on the allegations ... until the investigation is completed."

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