MBOMBELA – A family whose father died in Rob Ferreira Hospital on Saturday, was further traumatised when they had to carry his body downstairs due to the lifts being out of order again.
Mr Ian Jacobsohn told Lowvelder that his father, Josef (86) was admitted to hospital last Monday after he had a stroke and also contracted pneumonia. He was treated in casualty at first, but was later transferred to Ward 8 on the fourth floor.
He died there on Saturday. Ian was on his way back to Mbombela from eMalahleni at that stage and asked his daughter to arrange with Avbob to remove the body.
Mr Eddie van Greunen of Avbob was on duty that day and went to the hospital. He found that the lifts were not working for the umpteenth time, and told Lowvelder that officials had to carry no less than 13 bodies down the stairs in June due to them being out of order.
Josef’s body was loaded onto a trolley and Van Greunen started the difficult process of carrying it down the stairs.
He says the matron of the ward and nursing staff tried contacting the hospital’s CEO, Ms Gladys Koete, but the call went straight to voicemail.
Van Greunen and Ian’s family went to the head of the porters and asked if they could lend a hand. They were, however, informed that because Avbob was a private institution they couldn’t help them. They were told that porters would transport the body to the state mortuary for a fee of R1 000 and Avbob would then have to fetch it there.
Relatives at the hospital asked other family members to help them and two women and two men assisted Van Greunen to carry the trolley down the stairs. He added that a lift to the theatre was working but security officials refused to let them use it.
They struggled for an hour to get it down the stairs. “The body could slip off at any time despite being fastened and moved on the trolley while we were busy. It was very upsetting for the family,” Van Greuen confirmed.
In another case a body was kept in a closed room for four hours last month, before Avbob was called to remove it. “You can’t keep a body outside cold storage for that long as it starts decomposing,” he said. “We fetch a lot of bodies at Themba, but at least they help. When the lifts aren’t working, the nurses assist us.”
Mr Dumisani Malmule, spokesman for the provincial Department of Health, did not respond to queries by deadline.
