Staff reporter
Bloemfontein – At least 130 girls from Bainsvlei Combined School were yesterday admitted to Universitas Academic and Pelonomi Regional Hospital following a food poisoning incident.
STEPUPSANEWS can confirm that the girls fell ill after eating stew served at the school hostel on Sunday.
This comes after a joint inspection by the South African Human Rights Commission and the Department of Labour on Wednesday, 6 May 2026.
The inspection followed a series of stories published by this publication regarding conditions at the school hostels.
At the time of reporting, the girls’ hostel was found to be in a far better condition than the boys’ hostel, which was in an extreme poor state.
Now, with girls aged between 9 and 18 hospitalised, serious questions are being raised about the safety and living conditions at the institution.
There are growing calls for urgent intervention by the Department of Education, with some community members arguing that authorities have failed to act despite repeated warnings.
This is the third time pupils from this school are admitted for food poisoning.
The situation is especially heartbreaking because many of the affected learners come from poor farming communities and often do not have strong representation or support structures to fight for their rights.
In other news, NPA will decide on matters involving Free State Premier, Joyce “Pretenders” Mathae, MECs: Teboho “Sulky” Mokoena and Dibolelo Mance as per below email from NPA’s DDPP.
Based purely on the evidence we have mofu o tla theohela ka lebitlrng ebile a stubborn fly follow the corpse into the grave!
While porridge defenders will be holding #HandsOff nonsense we will dish out every moment.
This is a developing story.
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