Public urged to report hospital bad service
"Do not leave a health facility before lodging a formal complaint."
REPORT bad service or lodge a formal complaint before you leave a government health facility. That’s the advice from KZN Health Department spokesperson, Ncumisa Mafunda after an alleged incident occurred at King Edward Hospital on Sunday night, when a sickly eight-year-old boy was turned away by the hospital staff. According to the father of the child, Keith Sonic, the boy had been suffering from a serious headache for two days.
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“When we got there we had to wait half an hour before we were attended to. They asked if we had been helped, even though they weren’t busy. The hospital staff were all just sitting and talking. After they weighed my child, I was told to sit and wait for the doctor which we did. Two doctors appeared and to my shock we were told that they were off duty and were not seeing any patients for the night as their shift had ended. They told us to wait for the doctors coming in for the new shift, but said it might not happen as they were short staffed. All this time my child had still not received any help and could barley walk. Eventually we left the hospital without [receiving] any help,” he said.
“The Department would like to plead to the public not to leave a health facility before lodging a formal complaint with a Public Relations Officer or CEO/facility manager, so that the complaint can be investigated and necessary action taken to provide redress and prevent the re-occurrence of an incident. We are concerned about these allegations and we take them very seriously. However, the Department finds it difficult to intervene further in this matter due to the lack of details, such as the area of the hospital they had gone to and the identity of the doctor who saw them and allegedly failed or refused to render assistance,” said Mafunda.
Speaking to the Berea Mail, a frustrated Sonic said: “My wife had to take out a loan to take my son to a private doctor. Finally my boy is much better after having to pay so much,” he said.
