Patients forced to use filthy toilets
This filth, alone, can make you ill enough to need the hospital.
UNABLE to tolerate the reeking human filth in the public toilets at Vryheid Hospital, sometimes patients have resorted to relieving themselves on the grass outside, in utter desperation.
They say that every single one of the toilets intended for use by sick people seeking help at the hospital’s outpatients department is filled with human waste, and always has been, even prior to the drought.
Vryheid resident, Kate Brand, recently brought this issue into the spotlight, publishing photos of the filthy toilets on her facebook page, and hoping that making the matter public would motivate the Department of Health to take action.
“I have recently had to have an operation on my hand, and I don’t have medical aid so I have to use the public hospital.
In order to see a doctor in the outpatients department, you sit in line, sometimes with more than a hundred other people.
This means that you are basically sitting in line the whole day.
If you haven’t been attended to by a doctor by 4pm, you are sent home and have to return the next day. Most people have to use the loo at some point, and it is disgusting,” said Ms Brand.
“I don’t usually go into the public toilets, but the last time I was there, I was desperate, so I had to try.
I went into the toilet and I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. It was disgusting.
Instead, I took some photographs and put it on facebook.
This is not right and somebody needs to do something about this. This filth alone, can make you ill enough to need the hospital.”
According to Ms Brand, there is no water provided in the toilets for flushing.
There are two water tanks just outside the toilets but one of them has fallen over and looks broken
The other may contain water that could be used for flushing but the hospital has made no means available for carrying the water to the toilet.
“Even before the drought, it was that filthy. The Department of Health needs to be held responsible,” concluded Ms Brand.
A telephonic and written request to the hospital for an explanation regarding the condition of the toilets and asking what action was to be taken to rectify the situation was made on Monday morning. However, no response was forthcoming at the time of print.
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