Another young Pretoria mother has come forward with alarming allegations of mistreatment at Steve Biko Academic Hospital, describing unsanitary conditions, dismissive staff and neglect during her labour, which left her physically and emotionally distressed.

Pretoria Rekord previously reported how another Pretoria mother’s worst nightmare became a reality at the hospital when she found her two-week-old baby covered in faeces, only to be told by a nurse, ‘You can clean it yourself’.

According an article published by Pretoria Rekord, Chantelize Coetzee says she encountered several issues that deeply affected her birthing experience earlier this year.

She says that upon arrival on August 31, she was assigned a bed with no blanket or pillow, and the nursing staff allegedly denied requests from her mother to bring a pillow.

“I had to use my jacket as a pillow.”

Her mother was not allowed to be with her.

She describes the bathroom in the maternity ward as unclean, with an overpowering odour of urine and limited toilet paper.

“I was told not to wear underwear, and when I got up to go to the toilet, some amniotic fluid spilt on the floor. A nurse saw this and rudely asked me: ‘Who do you think is going to clean that?’”

According to Coetzee, her labour progressed over several hours without adequate pain management.

“The nurses repeatedly dismissed my concerns about the pain, suggesting I was ‘faking’ due to crying.

“I was not allowed to see a doctor, and I observed staff removing heart rate monitor results before I could view them. The machine’s screen was also turned away from me so that I could not see anything. The sound was also turned off, so I could not hear my baby’s heartbeat.”

Coetzee says after spending hours in pain with nurses telling her she was faking it and that she was only about 1cm dilated, she decided to pray as she feared not only for the life of her unborn baby but also for her own.

“A nurse came past me while I was praying beside my bed [and said]: ‘Your God will not come now and help’.”

Coetzee and her family made the crucial decision to leave the Steve Biko Academic Hospital and went up the road to a private hospital where doctors immediately assisted her and she was found to be 8cm dilated and in advanced labour, contradicting Steve Biko’s staff assessments of 1cm dilation shortly before.

Steve Biko Academic Hospital spokesperson Lovey Mogapi says they are investigating the matter.

Coetzee recounted hearing a nurse threaten another woman in labour, saying they would ‘leave her baby inside to die’ if she didn’t push – a chilling echo of Nicole Mans’ experience earlier this year.

Mans, whose baby required a C-section due to gastroschisis, was denied the procedure and forced into natural labour. Struggling to deliver because of her baby’s organs, she recalled a doctor threatening to ‘leave her baby to suffocate inside her’ if she didn’t push fast enough.

These alarming accounts spotlight troubling patterns of treatment in the hospital’s maternity ward.