South African Healthcareless
By: Brian Akerman
South African hospitals are neglecting and mistreating patients, often doing more harm than good. With this article I hope to shed some light on the severity of the problem and how desperately a solution is needed.
On 12 February of this year, Eye Witness News reported a case in which Groote Schuur Hospital turned away a baby. The reason being that the hospital didn’t cater for babies. The four-month-old infant died by the time it reached another hospital.
Head of the Western Cape Health Department, Professor Craig Househam, mentioned in a discussion with 567 CapeTalk:“But the rules of the game are clear that a baby is treated as an emergency. That child should have never left the hospital. The hospital doesn’t primarily treat children but medical care should have been given.”
Another report identifies how a shortage of staff trained to deal with childbirth-related emergencies, and an excess of those who simply ignore protocol, lead to 1 519 women dying between 2005 and 2007 and a shocking 4867 between 2008 and 2010.
In 2011, Kalafong Hospital was accused by three women of neglecting white patients. One of them claimed that at one point she had live maggots eating her rotting leg flesh. Is it surprising that the Afrikaans patients told reporters that neglect was due to a difference in race? Maybe I'm just naïve, being a white male brought up in the ‘New South Africa’, but I don't think we can use racism as a scapegoat this time. After all, none of the parties involved in the many other incidents play the ‘Race Card’.
When people hear that I am writing an article on mistreatment of patients, they almost always have a story to tell. A woman of almost 90 was admitted to a South African private hospital and required an operation in order to unblock a clogged artery in her neck. Although a success, the operation caused her to suffer a stroke. She was temporarily unable to talk and the left side of her body was partially paralysed. She was incapable of movement or doing things for herself. After being put into a private ward, she did not receive extra and constant care appropriate to her condition. “What a joke!” exclaims a relative.
She recovered partially, learned to speak again and her communication seemed to improve. The staff seemed more attentive then. One day, during visiting hours, she was sitting in a chair in her room. Her visitor immediately realised something was wrong when she failed to respond. It was obvious she had suffered another stroke and yet a nurse disagreed, saying that she was ‘just sleepy’. However, a doctor was called by her visitor and confirmed that she had, in fact, suffered a stroke! How long had she been sitting there without anyone noticing something was wrong? This meant she had to later relearn many skills.
A stroke cannot be prevented, but prompt medical attention is essential for recovery. After these incidents, she was moved to a semi-private ward where at least another patient would be present. Fortunately, an alert and sincere woman was in her ward to look after her and it was reported that staff had to be called quite often because they simply didn’t do their duty. The patient eventually recovered enough to go into a private frail care centre.
My source added that it was just a suspicion of neglect, especially in her helpless situation, that made them constantly feel the need to ‘keep an eye on things’. Just to clarify: my source felt racial differences had nothing to do with the neglect.
Mistreatment in South African hospitals is more common than some might think. We don’t see the problem until we, or our loved ones, are mistreated in hospital and then we’re surprised that nothing is done about it. I only discovered this disgusting aspect of our healthcare when a relative of mine was affected.
My aunt, slightly mentally impaired and for the past five years terminally ill, passed away in hospital earlier this year. It was an emotional rollercoaster of hope and despair, so when I overheard that she was not being treated with the dignity she deserved, it stuck in my side like a thorn. Small things… like writing ‘DOOF’ on her chart after hospital staff was told that she was severely hard of hearing (they simply needed to face her so that she could lip-read) was the first obvious sign of disregarding her dignity.
For the duration of her terminal illness, she had to adhere to a strict diet of no fats, salts or carbohydrates. Being very self-disciplined, and with the tireless assistance of my grandmother, my aunt stuck to her diet without wavering. In hospital, however, she was served bacon, egg and other fatty foods. Even after my family had multiple meetings with the catering staff, she would be reprimanded for refusing the meals.
As her condition worsened, she lost control of her bowels and, although she called for assistance immediately, she had often soiled her bed by the time it arrived. They would reprimand her for this too. Shockingly, she would be left in a soiled bed and it was left to her family to clean her upon visiting. She began to wear disposable nappies but these were left on until they leaked. She also became covered in sores, which were only noticed by her visitors when they arrived. Why wasn’t this addressed by hospital employees? Furthermore, the necessary cream had to be purchased and applied by her family.
There were so many incidents of neglect that we eventually took things into our own hands, fetching water from the kitchen and checking on her as much as possible. She was eventually moved to ICU and passed away on 21 January 2014.
“Our family will never recover from the negligent and disrespectful manner in which she was treated. She was dying - could they not let her die with her dignity intact?” – Her sister.
The night care was pathetic and so a relative stayed through the night and went home during the day. But on return, they would find the patient lying on the bed in just a nappy and no other cover - this with people walking past her room. It was explained to her upset visitors that in her confused state she took her clothes off when she was hot. So hospital staff just left her? Neglecting her dignity? The staff was very unsympathetic but their excuse was that they were short-staffed and struggled to get to all their patients.
Learning that these incidents of neglect are not confined to one hospital, I realise it isn’t a single hospital’s mentality. Is it a South African thing?
People I've spoken to, whom felt their loved ones were mistreated, said the hospital staff is unsympathetic towards those who are less likely to recover. A sense of not wasting time or effort on someone who is dying. Are our hospitals neglecting anyone that can’t communicate their own condition? Apparently the spectrum of neglect is broader than that, as even a young adult, with a fresh stab wound, was reportedly ignored by hospital staff. Why do these unsympathetic people go into the medical field, if not to care for those who need it most?
I have conveyed just a few incidents of mistreatment, it scares me to think how many other patients’ conditions have been worsened by hospital “care”. Make sure your loved ones are not neglected next time they are in hospital! If this was unconvincing and you still think you won’t be effected, here are some more articles on the subject:
Mothers haunted by hospital hell
and
SAHRC to investigate hospital infant deaths
