Johannesburg - Beleaguered Tembisa Hospital continues to hog the headlines for all the wrong reasons.
The hospital is dealing with a shortage of beds which has resulted in patients sleeping on the floor and others not even receiving treatment.
A video circulated on social media over the festive season showed a dire situation at the facility with patients on the floor and filth everywhere.
While the theatre unit is affected by load shedding and shortage of staff (nurses and doctors), the casualty ward comes off as the most overcrowded with different patients of different illnesses mixed, including patients with mental health illnesses.
A 36-year-old male patient shared how neglected he felt from the day he was admitted to the hospital. He said that he doesn't feel like he is going to make it out alive.
“I came here two days ago, and I have been sleeping on the floor. Luckily yesterday they moved some patients to the other ward and that is how I managed to stand up and get myself a bed. Should it not be that I needed this mechanical ventilator, I would just walk out and go home without even signing out because it seems like we came here to just die,” he said.
Sechaba Labasa, a father to an 18-year-old male patient angrily discharged his son after learning that his son got swollen legs due to sleeping in a wheelchair and not being given medication since admission.
“I tried reaching out to a nurse, and she dismissed me by telling me that there were no available beds and that there was nothing she could do. I am now waiting to fill in the forms, I am taking my son,” he said.
Another 31-year-old patient shared how she got admitted as a person with mental health problems without being diagnosed as such. She said that her family told the nurses that she was insane, and without even testing her, she was taken in.
“The situation here is bad. I got admitted here as a person with mental issues. I am not crazy! How do you conclude that a person is insane by just staring at them? There’s definitely no order in here. I got admitted two days back, and I was only given Panado on the first day of arrival. Does Panado even cure madness?” she asked.
Attempts to get comments from the hospital drew a blank. Chairperson of the Treatment Action Campaign in Gauteng, Monwabisi Sidwell Mbasa, announced that he was at the hospital the day the video was recorded.
He said that he had observed the situation and subsequently engaged the hospital's senior management and further wrote an email to the MEC, and as a result, the meeting regarding the video scenario was held.
“We demanded accountability for that particular incident and other myriads of related issues. Therefore, we did advocacy."
According to Mabasa, the meeting went well and he indicated that there were solutions that were being implemented currently.
“Stemming from early 2022 following our first meeting with the new MEC then and her predecessor, they are extending the hospital wards and casualty area, while some wards are being renovated,” Mabasa said.