Success reloaded with Hlengiwe

Last week a friend of mine had her son admitted to one of the private hospitals near Nelspruit. On Thursday I spent the afternoon with them, playing with the little one. As I drove back home, I had an intense conversation with myself, asking myself if I would have been able to sit that long at Robs or Themba Hospital if the little one had been in admittance there or I would have made some excuses to leave given the conditions of these hospitals. Most of them are staff related and we fear for our sisters and brothers because what makes things bad in these public institutions is personnel’s attitude. The private sector has faults too, but its service standards make things bearable.

This past week the national minister of health Dr Aaron Motsoaledi launched a new concept, the “ideal clinic”, as part of the remedial strategy in response to the auditor’s recommendation for clinics. In my view, the qualities of this model seem to be nothing new but an elaboration of the service charter combined with the Batho Pele Principles as it speaks about issues of staff attitude towards patients, availability of medication, prompt attending of patients and so on.

Nurses in both the public and private sectors affiliate to one statutory body which is the South African Nursing Council needs to be visible to the people. I feel that the government needs to be bold and fire those who undermine the strides of democracy by oppressing patients with their stinking attitudes because there is absolutely no need for such behaviour to people who are already powerless, the sick.

The government has improved the salaries of nurses over the past 10 years and it is now time that society starts engaging it through all the available media. A health-care call centre can actually do a lot of good. Intense monitoring strategies need to be put in place in order to ensure that this demon of mistreating patients is curbed. Tight security systems must be put in place to deal with the theft of patient food and medication as these are a sad reality, hindering the service standards in public health institutions.

Proud and jubilant as we are for the achievements of the past 20 years, we still need to think of the direction we want to take, in shaping our democracy further on and we need to refuse to be abused by health professionals.

I wish to commend the resourceful nature of the National Department of Health’s website and Motsoaledi’s efforts. I must say, he is trying his best to get the department up to standard, as citizens we need to assist him with feedback and input.