Hospital was like a living hell in a death chamber, says Alex arts creative

Horror stories of the ill-treatment of patients at the hands of medical personnel and other unsavoury ordeals are beginning to emerge at hospitals behind the iron curtain of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Edenvale General Hospital in Rembrandt Park just opposite Lombardy East, which services patients mainly from the stone’s throw neighbourhood community of Alexandra, has not been spared from the criticism and the unravelling stories of abuse of patients.

One such patient from Alexandra to suffer the same fate of abuse is well-known arts creative, Refilwe Pieterse, who was admitted at the hospital on 7 April after bleeding and showing signs of possibly losing her baby.

This miscarriage happened only four months into her pregnancy and when she realised at home that she was bleeding, she rushed to her nearest 8th Avenue Clinic in Alexandra, which wasted no time and referred her to the hospital.

As this miscarriage was still in its early stage, she told the nurses she was strong enough to go the hospital on her own. But when she got there, the treatment she and other queueing patients received was a far cry from that at the 8th Avenue Clinic.

She described the treatment meted to her and other patients in the queue with her as ‘a living hell’ and the hospital as ‘more of a death chamber’ than a treatment centre where she expected solace and the retention of her dignity to be the order of the day.

“Instead we were roughed up, neglected and with no one caring to check for potential emergencies to quickly attend to them. I arrived at 10am and was asked to sit at reception just like everybody else. I was not alone in the miscarriage saga as I discovered another woman was in the same predicament.

“I sat there bleeding from 10am till 6pm and constantly mad trips to the toilet to clean myself. You see, I’m like a cat and I never want other people to see my dirt, and I always clean after myself. No one even cared to offer us any sanitary items for the bleeding I and the other woman were experiencing.

“I got to learn that hospitals are cold places just like government offices but lucky enough, with the grace of the Almighty, we can endure these cold rooms which are actually meant to heal us from our varied ailments. I could tell this place was not a healing centre due to the constant verbal fights by nurses and data capturers and neglect by even doctors themselves,” Pieterse said.

She said they sat there from early morning to evening without being offered anything to eat, not even water as some of us were losing blood. Pieterse said miscarriage pains are just as bad as birth pains and she only got a drip attached to her at 7pm.

When she was finally attended to, the doctor checked her and said there was no baby anymore and she needed to be sent back to cleaning the next day. They were offered to sleep on the benches without linen or blankets.

“As the nurse came to collect us one by one for the womb-cleaning process, she would just shout in front of everybody that once you go into the cleaning chamber there will be no screaming, shouting or crying.

“The cleaning is done live without any sedation and the pain is unbearable, and the other woman I met there actually collapsed in the process. The cleansing of the womb takes five minutes with this instrument constantly scrubbing around in the womb. Those five minutes in that chamber are like hours if not days of horror,” Pieterse said.

At one stage Pieterse said it became so unbearable that she screamed and the nurse came shouting ‘don’t scream, don’t scream, you scaring other patients’ and at that time the door is wide open for the patients to see the horror live. By the time she finished, Pieterse said she was already panting like a dog.

Pieterse emphasised this must not be viewed as an attack on the hospital as an institution but a way of reflecting on the goings-on and offering potential solutions to the shortcomings that patients experience at the hospital.

After nearly a month of waiting for comment, hospital communications manager Thabile Mkhatshwa apologised for the delay as the matter was being reviewed and then added that concerns raised had been addressed directly with patient.

“The patient was seen by our quality assurance manager who addressed the matter with the patient. All points of improvement as discussed by the two parties will be actioned to ensure better and quality healthcare,” Mkhatshwa said, and added; “We value our patients and their wellbeing.”

But Pieterse said the only time she had spoken to quality assurance manager was when he requested her to put her ordeal at the hospital in writing, including the recommendations she wanted implemented to improve the patient experience at the hospital.

“The gentleman promised that he would come back to me when they have reviewed the case and considered the recommendations I had offered but up until now, no one from the hospital has come back to me,” Pieterse said, and added; “I am still waiting for him.”