Mother of sickly baby upset by hospital treatment

The Courier has received numerous complaints about Dundee Hospital – in particular, the outpatients department. A mother of a one-year-old baby girl was upset by the way she was treated when she took her sick baby to Dundee Hospital shortly after new year.
Merlyn Griffiths complained on the Courier’s Facebook page about the hospital not attending to her sick baby girl who had respiratory problems.
She claims to have arrived at the hospital at 7pm and was only attended three hours later, “When I asked about not been attended to I was told that the doctor was eating.”

Merlyn could not understand why she had to wait all those hours when her daughter could have stopped breathing while they were seated at outpatients. Her daughter has been since transferred to Greys Hospital.

Some of the complaints received:
Abdullah: On January 15, I got to Dundee Hospital at 2am and I was told by the nursing staff that they have called the doctor. By 3:35amthere was still no doctor.
Karen: I had to go in at 2am at the beginning of December and the nurses completely ignored me.
They did not even get out of their chairs to see what the problem was because you know at 2am it couldn’t be possibly an emergency.
It was for my domestic worker and I asked the nurse to look at her.
She told me to open a file and 25 minutes later, after opening a file, I went to the nurse again and she asked me where the patient was. They watched us walk in and my domestic worker was sitting in the waiting area right there.
Naz: I visited a relative in Ward B and was shocked by the condition of the ward.
Parts of the ceiling were out and each patient was given a kettle of water to bath. Apparently, they have major problems with hot water pipes.
Piet: Dundee Hospital has no water because of the water restrictions (like most of us in that area) and the hospital has no backup tanks.
The Courier contacted Sboniso Dube, communications officer, for comment and he replied that the issues were passed on to the relevant managers for a response.
A response will be published when it is forthcoming.