Elderly lady assaulted at hospital gate
Smith also requested that the community made use of the suggestion boxes located throughout the hospital. “These suggestion boxes proved highly successful and many issues have been resolved this way,” she said.
Many have in the past laid complaints at the offices of Barberton Times about the bad manners and bombastic attitude of some of the security personnel at the entrance gate of Barberton General Hospital. These guards are employees of TOP10 Security. This journalist also had first-hand experience of this said behaviour.
On Monday, however, things got totally out of hand. Annatjie Sampson, a familiar face in town, visited the hospital to take her wheelchair-bound brother for his monthly check-up. She was denied permission to enter the premises because she had a dog in the car. Her son (26) took the five-month-old Jack Russell puppy, got out of the car and proceeded to wait outside the gate for his mother to drop off his uncle. “At this point there were no security even remotely close to the vehicle so I continued to drive in,” said Sampson and continued, “I was not even past the boom when the security guards started shouting that I should stop, which I did.”
Sampson said one of the officials, someone named Jeff, came up to her and started pointing and poking his index finger in her face. “He touched my nose that’s how close his hand was to my face.”
The guard then attempted to take her car keys out of the ignition and Sampson tried to stop him. In the struggle he broke the key chain off the key.
“Finding that his attempt to get hold of the key was unsuccessful, he went at it again.”
Sampson said she was afraid that he might break off the key inside the ignition and tried to stop him once more. “He was fuming and took hold of my hand and bent my wrist back as if to break it!”
At this stage her son, a healthy, muscular young man, intervened and ordered the guard to get away from his mother. “The security guard then said to my son, ‘I’m gonna drop you’,”
In the end after she dropped off her brother, she searched for the hospital’s superintendent, Dr Modupe. She was referred to the complaints manager, Sunelle Smith. After lodging a complaint Smith assisted Sampson to open a file, had her taken for X-rays and had her hand bandaged.
Barberton Times contacted Smith who said the case was being investigated. Smith also requested that the community made use of the suggestion boxes located throughout the hospital. “These suggestion boxes proved highly successful and many issues have been resolved this way,” she said. ”Upon leaving the premises, the same guard came to me and whispered a very soft ‘sorry’. Sorry just won’t cut it I’m afraid. Although I only sustained soft-tissue injuries, it remains assault and on top of that I have temporarily lost use of my hand – my son has to drive me for the time being.”
