Health in Mpumalanga under scrutiny
Patients can no longer cope with nurses' attitude at Themba Hospital.
KABOKWENI – Overcrowding is expected to increase at Rob Ferreira Hospital in the capital city.
This comes after some patients of Themba Hospital said they could no longer cope with the bad attitude of nurses as they were allegedly being ill-treated and therefore preferred to go to Robs.
One patient who spoke to this publication on condition of anonymity, said, “We go to hospitals because we are sick and need help, but the treatment you receive is a nightmare. When nature calls and you don’t have the energy to walk fast enough to the bathroom, you end up soiling yourself which lands you in trouble and the nurses will not tolerate your story,” he said.
The Zulu family of Pienaar had no other option but to request the hospital to discharge their mother, Gogo Betty Zulu (75) after they had noticed that she had developed bed sores after being submitted to Themba on June 7.
Nurses apparently complained about her weight, saying that she was too fat too turn regularly.
Gogo’s daughter, Ms Nelly Zulu, told Mpumalanga News, “We decided to take my mother after we saw that she was not receiving good treatment. “She developed bed sores, so we want to take care of her at home since they are complaining about here weight.”
This paper contacted the provincial spokesperson for the health department,
Mr Ronnie Masilela, about measures being put in place to ensure that patients were treated well in health sectors.
He said, “As a department we provide suggestion boxes in all our facilities.
“Community members can write their complaints and put them in those boxes and we have a team responsible for checking the boxes monthly. “They can also use our toll-free number, 0800-20-40-98 and patients can directly complain to CEOs in hospitals. At clinics they can report problems to operation managers,” he explained.
Masilela indicated it was not something new to the department to receive such complaints and alluded that in most cases they centred around the bad attitude of staff. He added the department was working tirelessly to deal with this problem. While waiting for hours at Rob Ferreira is the norm for most patients, it’s reported that this overcrowding is mostly due to the fact that people do not want to use local clinics and do not have hospital referrals.
