TENSION and uncertainty was the order of the day at the South Rand Hospital on Friday morning as a crowd of protesters made their way into the hospital under public order policing supervision.
This was in protesting the ‘negligence and addressing strong safety issues at the hospital’ according to community leader and spokesperson Simphiwe Hlafa.
Hlafa and a crowd of locals met outside the South Rand Hospital to submit a memorandum of grievances that they believed have gone on for too long unaddressed.
“Comrades we want to be part of the solution,” he said at the start of his address.
Johannesburg Metro Department was on the scene alongside Ward 56 councillor Michael Crichton.
After Hlafa’s address, the locals made their way into the hospital premises where they staged a non-violent sit-in.
Hlafa said the sit-in was to get the much-desired attention from South Rand Hospital management.
“We want radical economic transformation,” he said and added that the hospital had become a death den.
Hlafa openly expressed that he too had lost a child in 2009 due to the alleged negligence.
He demanded that the hospital bring down a decision maker to address their issues.
Hospital CEO Dr Nobantu Maleka came to address the issues tabled. Expressing that she would report their grievances to the board, she said she would provide an outcome once she was in a position to do so.
Hlafa, however, said Maleka had received concerns before and had failed to act. He said people walked into the hospital alive and never walked out. He said the hospital was run by a board which should be disbanded. This he said formed part of their demands.
The matter is scheduled to continue on February 16 after the upshot was that feedback would be provided by the hospital to Hlafa and the disgruntled locals.
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