Rahima Moosa Hospital CEO says report reveals pregnant patients sleeping on floor was ‘staged’

A report into the treatment of patients at the Rahima Moosa Hosital has revealed that pregnant women were instructed to lie on the floor by one of the patients.

This was revealed by CEO Dr Nozuko Mkabayi in an interview with Newzroom Afrika on Tuesday.

This after a video of pregnant women sleeping on the floor of Rahima Moosa Hospital, was shared by Patriotic Alliance MMC for health Ashley Sauls.

In the video, Sauls appears to be doing a walkabout in the hospital passage, where heavily pregnant women are sleeping on the floors or sitting slouched on plastic chairs, waiting for assistance.

The video was recorded on 1 April 2022.

“How can this be correct?” asks Sauls in the video.

“Mothers, on cold floors, whose in charge? I want to see someone in charge,” Sauls is heard saying in the video.

READ MORE: WATCH: Heavily pregnant women sleep on Rahima Moosa hospital floor

But according to the report into the incident, as stated by Mkabayi, someone instructed the women to sleep on the floor.

“The ladies that were in the video that was taken by MMC Sauls, according to the staff that was on duty on the night in the ward, they had not been sleeping on the floor for longer than half an hour before Mr Sauls came into the ward,” said Mkabayi.

“He barged into the ward without an appointment under false pretences at the gate. No one was expecting him but the report is that one of the patients that was sitting on the chair, on the night no one was sleeping on the floor, all the pregnant women were sitting on the floor. There was a phone call that came in to one of the patients and after they received the phone call, she instructed the patients to lie on the floor to say that ‘he’s coming up, let’s lie down’, and that’s when they lay down.

“We have since interviewed some of the patients that were still remaining – four or five patients – and they all reported that they had been sleeping, they are not sure what happened. So none of them had been on the floor, they just woke up to this gentleman screaming and shouting so they were not sure what had happened,” said Mkabayi.

She told the news channel that one of the challenges at the hospital was the overcrowding as the hospital helps patients within the district and from other districts in Gauteng.

“Women book at a clinic and if they need specialist care, they are referred to us and other hospitals. So the type of patients that you saw need specialist help. We liaise with the clinics all the time. We cater to quite a large population and we only have two maternal obstetric units, we do not have a district hospital, which is a lower level hospital to cater for the patients.

“So we end up having a large number of patients. If we had other facilities that had midwives and district hospitals that also has doctors who can help patients who need specialist care, we would not be having this huge influx. We cater to patients in and out of our region in Gauteng and as a policy of the hospital, we don’t turn any patient away because it goes against the constitution,” she said.

Additional reporting by Narissa Subramoney