Anyone wearing a mini-skirt is not welcome in Oshakati Intermediate Hospital.

This is according to the newly-introduced and unwritten rules of Maxi Security Company, which currently controls the main entrance to the public facility. If you try to test their resolve by wearing a mini-skirt, the security personnel at the entrance will definitely show you the exit, because it is in violation of their self-styled dressing code in and around the Oshakati Intermediate Hospital.

On 4 July Maxi Security Company demonstrated that it means business. A young woman, who went to visit her sister at the maternity ward, got the shock of her life when a security guard, known as Hilma Amunyela, gave her the boot for wearing a mini-skirt.

The shell-shocked woman was obliged to phone her sister, who had just given birth, to come from the maternity ward to the main entrance to receive the gift she brought her.

“I am shocked and traumatised by Maxi Security Company’s bad treatment... Worse still, when they confined me to the gate outside, before my sister arrived, Amunyela kept telling everybody passing by that I am not dressed properly. Most of the people did not pay attention to her provocative remarks. But if these are rules of the hospital that a dress code should be adhered to, why is it not written and placed somewhere for everybody to see?” asked the offended woman, very close to tears.

“Yes, I am the one who prevented her not to enter the hospital, because she is badly-dressed. The skirt is too short and transparent. I will continue doing it to anyone dressed like her, because it is immoral to be dressed like that,” said Amunyela, while proudly beating her chest.

A supervisor of Maxi Security at the gate, one Benjamin Shikongo, confirmed to Informanté that all security personnel at the hospital are under instructions not to allow into the hospital anyone wearing a mini-skirt. “This is so, because such dresses are tempting to many people, including the mentally disturbed patients inside there. Only recently we had an incident of someone nearly raped by a mentally deranged person. We don’t want such a situation to occur again,” Shikongo explained. Asked to show any written rules from the security company or hospital management, he could not show any.

“These security guards do not know their work. Instead of searching people and cars for illegal items, such as dangerous weapons, drugs and stolen goods, they are concentrating on non-issues such as mini-skirts. This is totally a misdirection of their attention and responsibility,” said a source.

Oshakati Intermediate Hospital Superintendant, Dr. Shannon Kakungulu, said that it was news to him that a dress code for visitors had been introduced by a security company. He said the hospital is not involved, nor does it condone such treatment of visitors.

“I received a report that security guards were preventing people with old cars from entering the hospital. Only Mercedes Benz and other shiny cars were allowed inside. They should understand that this is not a hotel, but a public facility open to everyone. I will definitely instruct my administrative personnel to launch a thorough and comprehensive investigation into the matter,” Kakungulu stressed.