KABOKWENI – Long queues, the bad attitude of staff and the sick sleeping unattended to on the benches, with some of them visibly in pain, is the gloomy reality at Themba Hospital, one of the oldest and largest hospitals in the province.
Themba means hope, but there’s absolutely no hope here at all for the sick.
The hospital draws multitudes from as far afield as KaNyamazane, Matsulu, Pienaar and Luphisi, and most come for emergency medical assistance, but two-thirds return home without even having seen a doctor.
When Mpumalanga News arrived at the hospital after numerous complaints from the general public, it was jam-packed with patients ranging from children to elderly citizens and there wasn’t even room to sit.
Patients come as early as 05:00 to receive services which start at 07:00. This publication arrived at 05:00 with a patient who had an appointment to see a doctor.
At 07:00 the clerks arrive and start taking patients’ names. It takes a full two hours for them to obtain a minimum of 10 files and hand them out. This has to rate as one of the worst hospitals in the province.
Some females jump the queue to go to the male clerks and receive their files in the blink of an eye.
An elderly person has fainted just a few benches from this journalist and is assisted by other patients. A staff member tells the people to go to the clinics before coming to the hospital.
After waiting this long for the file, Mpumalanga News approaches one of the female clerks to ask why is it taking so long. She responds,”It’s not easy getting these files and we still have to punch them into the computer, but if you can’t wait, go home.” Finally, the file is received and a female health-care worker directs this journalist to the hospital laboratory where one gets the test results before seeing the doctor.
At the lab’s door, there are six more people queuing for their results and they tell this newspaper that they have been waiting there for over an hour. One of them coughs painfully and it is obvious he suffers from TB. After an hour, the patient finally receives the results and proceeds to see a gynaecologist. Again the wait is for two hours. Health departmental spokesperson, Mr Ronny Masilela told Mpumalanga News that patients shouldn’t actually be made to wait that long at a public health-care institution. “It’s very disturbing. On top of our six working core factors within this sector are waiting times and staff attitude.
“We acknowledge that we do receive negative reports about staff attitude and long waiting times at some of our institutions.
“We are working very hard as a department to deal with these issues. We call all those who have been subjected to this or have been treated badly by our workers to report it so we can take the necessary steps,” says Masilela.
