While the country’s state clinics are notorious for long queues, it takes Jeffery Ndlovu about five minutes to get medication for chronic illness.

In fact, for Ndlovu from Delft – who uses the District Six day hospital in Cape Town’s CBD – he only gets caught in the long queues’ snag every six months when he has to see a doctor. Every other month, he collects his medication from a designated collection point in Church Street in Woodstock.

“To collect my monthly supply is so easy. It hardly takes five minutes, and I’m out of the building, ready to go to work on time. When I have to see a doctor, that’s where the problems start. It technically takes me the whole day at the clinic,” he said...