Rob Ferreira Hospital strike: We need selfless people in management

I have seen many horrific things in my eight years as a journalist and news editor here at Lowvelder. The two single most disturbing things I have witnessed in this time were both at Rob Ferreira Hospital.

I have been reporting on the hospital since my career kicked off in 2007. I’ve written stories on people who have died because of apparent neglect, of people who had to wait months for surgery to repair fractures as there weren’t enough orthopaedic surgeons available. When they finally ended up on the operating table, some of them had to have their bones broken again as the fractures had healed out of alignment.

Strikes flared up in 2008 and doctors, nurses and cleaners protested against horrible working conditions and a lack of sufficient compensation. The Department of Health battled to recruit enough doctors for the hospital. Nobody was willing to work at Rob because they weren’t offered a rural allowance and accommodation. I’ve seen talented doctors giving up and moving on to greener pastures.

I listened as former and late minister of health, Ms Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, announced at a press conference they would deploy Tunisian doctors at the hospital, in exchange for a rural allowance and accommodation – the same things local doctors had been begging for. I wondered to myself about the logic in that.

Things didn’t improve. In October 2012, I went to the hospital one night after receiving numerous phone calls from desperate people who had loved ones admitted there.

That evening, I saw a face that will haunt me to the day I die. Two men who had been critically injured in a fire, were left in a room to die. Their heads were swollen twice their original size and they were moaning in agony. It was clear they had to be ventilated and were in need of intensive care. However, there were no beds available in ICU. A former spokesman for the department later confirmed that no other hospital in the area could accommodate them and both subsequently passed away.

The DA, shocked by my report, submitted a complaint to the Human Rights Commission, which ruled that the department was indeed failing its people’s constitutional right to proper health care. I felt proud. I thought we were on the brink of a revolution, that things would change for the better. They haven’t.

On Wednesday, I was informed that bodies were rotting in the hospital as they were not being removed by striking porters. I thought it was nonsense, an exaggeration, but went to investigate nonetheless.

A colleague, Stefan, and I, had to tiptoe through puddles of water and rotten food. We watched the elderly, the frail, and the injured trying to make their way through the hospital’s corridors. We waited with bated breath for someone to slip and fall.

On the third floor, we were greeted by a terrible stench. We thought it was the scattered rubbish rotting. Stefan even bent down to smell a polystyrene container he thought the stench had been coming from.

It was as if I found myself in a horror movie. We walked past the lifts and I pushed open a door on my left which had been slightly ajar. I immediately realised that what I saw, were the covered feet of a dead body, the origin of the stench.

I opened the door further and yes, it was a dead body. It was covered with a sheet, with bodily fluids dripping from it. That was somebody’s mother, father, child, wife or husband, left there, without any dignity or even a second thought.

I want to know from our honourable premier Mr David Mabuza and MEC Mr Gillian Mashego, if they would have themselves admitted to Rob under those conditions? If they would allow their wives, children or parents to receive medical care there? But you expect your people, the same ones who elected you into power, to lie there?

I think you simply don’t care. Why should you? You have medical aid. A fantastic one at that. Gems or whatever governmental medical aid us taxpayers have to cough up thousands of rand for every month. You can go to Mediclinic or any other private hospital of your choice and demand the best possible care. What choice does the man on the street have?

I have sympathy with the strikers who have to work in terrible conditions. But to resort to such extreme measures to have your demands met, at the cost of someone else’s dignity, health and safety, is inexcusable. Late Wednesday afternoon, it was announced that the strike had ended. How long before the next one?

The situation won’t improve, not until individuals who have the community’s best interests at heart and are not motivated by their own greed, are deployed in managing positions.

In the meantime, I pray. I pray for everyone who has to rely on Rob for their health care and for the passionate few who are truly trying to make a difference. I pray that they get the strength to carry on.