Themba issues to be addressed

KABOKWENI – One of Mpumalanga News’ readers once referred to South Africans as spoilt citizens who are never satisfied with anything, especially free services presented to them by the government.

“People always look for a small thing to complain about. I have never seen people thanking the government that they have food, a free bed and free medication in hospitals but they always look for something negative to tell,” Ms Angel Mndawe Thobela wrote on Mpumalanga News’ Facebook page.

However, this publication believes that just because a service is free it doesn’t mean that people have to be subjected to compromised treatment, which can in turn put lives at risk. After receiving numerous complaints from patients at Themba Hospital about its filthy conditions, this newspaper did not hesitate to visit the hospital to investigate.

Upon arrival the first thing that caught the paper’s attention was the dirty old floors that looked like they had not been mopped in ages. These journalists came across one of the general workers who agreed to talk to the paper. When Mpumalanga News asked her about the conditions she opened up and said working at the facility felt like torture.

“Do you see how large this hospital is? Only a few of us are here to ensure that it’s clean and it is difficult for us because we do not even have the proper equipment.

We are always told that the department will sort it out and more general workers will be appointed to fill the gap but that has been a narration for years,” said the woman in her late 50s adding that they sometimes had to work awkward shifts due to the shortage of staff.

As the paper continued with its inspection, it noticed that despite the water crisis, pipes and taps were dripping in some of the bathrooms.

Some wards were overcrowded with patients sleeping on foam mattresses squeezed in-between the beds. This publication spoke to a few patients who confessed that being admitted there resembled a death sentence. “How can we recover in such awful conditions with filth all over the place? It looks like no one cares since this is a public hospital.

“Take for instance the water all over the floor in the bathrooms, it has been like that for weeks and nothing has been done. Just yesterday I complained to a nurse who told me that if I’m not happy with the situation here I must just go to Mediclinic,” said a patient.

As much as the media are always accused of proclaiming fire where there is no smoke, this time the publication is confident that it won’t be viewed as troublemakers since the chairperson of the portfolio committee, Ms Patricia Ngobeni, also acknowledged that the hospital was a mess during the legislature’s oversight visits last week.

“We have found that the hospital is dirty and we were told that the reason is because they have a problem with general workers who have now aged and have retired.

“The matter must be addressed urgently and management has promised to advertise posts for general workers and we hope that will address the cleanliness issue,” Ngobeni said adding that the problem had been going on for too long now.