Treatment of patients at Themba hospital improving
The improvement is attributed to the Public Protector, Adv Thuli Madonsela's unannounced visits to the hospital in July.
KABOKWENI – Treatment of patients at Themba Hospital has apparently improved.
This is according to a number of community members who told Mpumalanga News they have been receiving better services during the past two months.
Ms Phumzile Khosa attributed the improvement to the Public Protector, Adv Thuli Madonsela’s unannounced visits to the hospital in July. She said Madonsela had conducted public hearings asking patients to rate the institution’s services.
“People were honest and shared their experiences with her. The main concern was rude nurses who would shout at people, even the elderly,” Khosa said.
Another patient who said he was on ARVs, said although things were not yet at the best level, he was satisfied with the improvement. “We raised concerns about long queues where we have to wait about four hours to be attended to by a doctor and then wait in another queue to get medication at the pharmacy. That is still the case, but now that other things are changing, it gives us hope,” he said.
For Ms Nomsa Matsebula, this improvement might only be for a little while. She said she believes nurses are only waiting for the water to settle before they return to their previous behaviour.
She added that health workers had a tradition of treating patients badly and she did not believe that their behaviour would change. “Why wait for the Public Protector before they could change their ways? We would have to wait and see,” she said.
Matsebula added that Themba had been in the papers for the wrong reasons many times and now that things are changing, it is only fair for the media to report it as well.
Last week, Madonsela reported about her visit’s findings to the Mpumalanga Provincial Legislature raising patients’ concerns.
She said among other issues raised by the public, losing and misplacing patients’ files was a main concern. She urged Premier David Mabuza to urgently attend to these issues which were compromising health care in the country.
“The problems will be resolved because if we don’t attend to them, people will loose their confidence in the office of the Public Protector,” responded Mabuza.
