Floodgates open with complaints of hospital
An article detailing the DA’s attempt to help patients who had complained about Lydenburg General Hospital, resulted in a continued discussion among patients and political parties. The state of the public healthcare system (clinics and hospitals) is so dire that one has to experience it to believe it. That being said, there are hospitals and healthcare professionals who try their best and they deserve gratitude and support.
The article (Steelburger/Lydenburg News Thursday January 28) stated the DA had made the hospital management aware of several concerns.
The provincial DA leader and health spokesperson, Jane Sithole, and Sonja Boshoff, a member of the National Council of Provinces in the Mpumalanga Provincial Legislature, had had a meeting at Lydenburg General to discuss these grievances with the hospital board on Tuesday January 12. Failure to provide medication, not being able to register deceased family members, loss of patient files and rude doctors attending to patients were some of the complaints.
This included one rape victim being turned away from the hospital without having been examined by a doctor.
In its defence, the hospital management highlighted that there is no shortage of medication, but rather that nursing staff could be reluctant to unpack medication provided by the Department of Health.
After the article appeared, some of the patients, known to Steelburger/Lydenburg News, reiterated how they had been treated at the hospital.
“I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s disease in 2015. It is a condition in which your immune system attacks your thyroid. I was originally treated at Kalafong Hospital in Tswane, but my file was later transferred to Lydenburg. For the past year, the hospital has been looking for it. After nearly a year they opened a new file after my records from Kalafong had been sent here. Within one month, it went missing. The nurses accused me of stealing the file. Some of the personnel refuse to speak to me in English. I don’t understand indigenous languages. It makes it very difficult to communicate with them. The Kalafong staff were some of the best in the country and they left no stone unturned with my diagnoses and treatment. For my specific condition, a new blood test has to be done every six months. The doctor repeated my prescription without an examination or new blood tests here in Lydenburg. It truly concerned me, because my prescription needs to be altered after the collection of the new data,” said the patient who wished to remain anonymous.
The patient was also diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). This is a chronic inflammatory lung disease that causes obstructed airflow from the lungs. When the patient is in a stressful situation, she breathes with difficulty. It makes each visit to Lydenburg General event more traumatic.
A family member of another patient confirmed on Monday that she had passed away last week. She was refused treatment at the hospital after she had broken her arm. The family believes she passed away from blood clots after she had waited for treatment at the hospital. The delay also caused her wound to become septic. After several hours waiting at Lydenburg General, her family rushed her to the local medical centre. With the financial help of a friend, she was treated by a local doctor; however, by then the damage was fatal.
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“I was very concerned about our domestic worker a few weeks ago. She is not someone who easily complains or tells us that she is sick. So when she phoned us and told us how sick she was, we knew it was very serious. She had taken over-the-counter medicine for nausea at home, but it made her throw up, along with some other symptoms she experienced. I decided on Monday January 4 to drive to her home in Ohrigstad and bring her to the hospital in Lydenburg. They were useless, they didn’t even help her. They only said sorry, they can’t help her now. There were only five people in front of her in the line. I was certain with only a few people in front of her they would be able to help her. They sent her home without medication and gave her something for vomiting. Even though she had told them nausea medicine makes her vomit even more,” said the concerned employer.
“On January 2 at 03:00 we rushed my dad to the hospital. They took him in at Casualty and put him on oxygen. They admitted him at about 12:00 the next day. After that, we didn’t see him again. I tried calling that evening to enquire about his welfare. They phoned my mom at about 05:00 to say that he had passed away. The next day I went back for the death notice. There were about four families in front of me and four behind me. The people behind me were not issued with notices of death as there was just one book for the whole hospital. I sat there for four hours. What was very disturbing, was as I was sitting opposite a single room where a man was lying, in those four hours, not one nurse, not one doctor, put their head into that man’s room to see if he was okay. That did not give me a lot of reassurance about what had happened the night before with my own father,” said a family member of a patient.
She did say in full disclosure, however, that the personnel had tried to help them and placed her father on oxygen immediately. Someone from the hospital phoned her earlier this week to follow up regarding this experience. The hospital employee told her that they appreciated her honest feedback and that they were going to work on the points that had been brought up.
Hopefully, this is a step in the right direction for the processes to be streamlined. After the visit, Sithole said residents should not be deprived of health services and that the DA will continue to push for answers to help the community. The hospital board did undertake to address the issues discussed with the DA, and to contact patients to follow up on the issues raised.
