Patient feels the stress as medical files go missing

UMBILO resident, Gregory Simpson says the stress of dealing with clerical staff at King Edward VIII Hospital and poor patient file management, has affected his health, and many other patients who find themselves in the same predicament.

The latest incident according to Simpson occurred on Monday while he was in the hospital's casualty unit. “I had to wait two hours before getting seen to as a supervisor had to find and sign my file, but the security said there were no supervisors available. Then I had to wait another four hours for an X-ray report,” he said.

Earlier this month Simpson had to deal with endless problems after clerical staff lost his file when he arrived for a biopsy. “I don't have a problem with the doctors at the hospital, but rather with the admin clerks who constantly lose my medical file. I arrived at 4.30 that Monday morning, straight from my shift and was supposed to go in for surgery but they lost my file again and wanted to create a new one, without any of my medical history!” he explained. He said he had to approach the management offices to explain to them and eventually with security in tow, managed to find his medical file and was prepped for surgery.

“This whole procedure of waiting and having your files with medical history go missing really puts added stress on patients when we have enough stress worrying about our health and going for treatment,” he said.

Nontobeka Ndlela, public relations officer at the hospital acknowledge that there is a problem. “It is important for us as the hospital to acknowledge that we have challenges with regards to the patient file management. We were informed that the file was later located and the patient informed and apology tendered. Management is working on assisting as far as this issue is concerned and hoping that in the near future we will have computer system so as to solve the issue indefinitely.”