QBN Online

ACCESS to basic health services is one of the basic human rights is enshrined in our constitution and, despite the problems the country is facing at present, the right to seek medical help is one of the listed “essentials” that even lockdown isn’t supposed to limit.
However, Seaview resident, Deb Skinner, said she has found it impossible to get the medical care she needs due to a variety of issues which have arisen as a result of the lockdown.
Skinner, who spent some time in St Augustine’s hospital this year, and has chronic medical conditions requiring careful monitoring and medication, said she feels helpless to access the care she needs.
Skinner visited the casualty ward on the evening before lockdown was implemented on 26 March and said she was hastily discharged amid rumours of impending lockdown. “They all seemed to know there was a lockdown on the horizon and my doctor who visited me late at night said he had been in a meeting, and I think that was about the lockdown,” she told the Queensburgh News who has seen copies of her discharge papers from the hospital.

Covid-19 at St Augustine’s
Earlier this month (April) it was announced that Netcare St Augustine’s Hospital will be temporarily closed due to the high number of positive coronavirus cases being linked to it. (Ref: https://www.citizen.co.za/highway-mail/387310/update-kzn-health-mec-netcare-ceo-situation-st-augustines/)

Netcare issued a statement on Wednesday (8 April) in which it assured South Africans that safeguarding each and every person in its care, staff members, doctors and others who work at Netcare St Augustine’s Hospital, as well as in all other Netcare hospitals, against Covid-19 and other infections had, and would remain to be, of paramount importance.
“We are deeply saddened that, despite our very best efforts and precautions, there have been a total of four Covid-19 associated deaths at Netcare St Augustine’s Hospital in Durban since the outbreak started in South Africa,” said Dr Richard Friedland, chief executive officer of the Netcare Group.
“Netcare St Augustine’s Hospital has a total of 15 pre-existing community acquired Covid-19 patients in its dedicated Covid-19 isolation units at present. Of these patients, we can confirm that one person has already recovered and tested negative and is expected to be discharged shortly,” said Friedland in the same statment.
Friedland confirmed in the statement issued by the hospital’s communications agency that 47 people connected with the facility had tested positive for Covid-19.
“Of the 47 positive cases, 33 are in self-isolation and a further 14 are being accommodated by Netcare to ensure that they are able to safely self-quarantine. Of those who tested positive, one person has since tested negative following his period of self-quarantine and has since returned to work,” explained the CEO.