A large number of clinics and hospitals in the Eastern Cape are experiencing critical medicine shortages and stock outs while surgery and other procedures have virtually grind to a halt due to a wildcat strike by staff at the Mthatha Health Complex (MHC). The strike is affecting over 100 rural clinics and a number of hospitals, with some using their own vehicles to drive to Mthatha in the hope of getting drugs from the medicines depot. Regional hospitals have also reported that referrals for anything from x-rays to surgery has virtually stopped.