MBOMBELA – There’s always smoke at Rob Ferreira Hospital and we all know what they say about smoke and fire.
Someone is always complaining about resources at the facility. If it’s not patients, it’s the staff.
On Tuesday morning sick people were left deserted after administration clerks downed files in protest against unfavourable conditions which they face on a daily basis while on duty.
Patients who went to the hospital as early as 06:00 to avoid the queue blues were fuming after having had to wait hours with no one attending to them.
“I got here just before 06:00 hoping to do my routine check-up before going to work, but four hours later, no one was at the files cubicle to help.
We don’t know what’s going on,” said an angry Azalia Thobela from Pienaar.
A nurse who had brought a referred patient from Matikwane Hospital also had to return without getting any assistance.
“My patient is in the ambulance and they are refusing to admit him without a file and we’ve been waiting for too long.
The only reasonable thing to do will be to go back since no one is telling us what’s going on,” she said.
Chanting, the clerks marched to the CEO’s office to demand an urgent solution to their problems.
“We only have three computers that are working and files lie strewn all over the floor since we have no proper cupboards to keep them.
The chairs we sit on are old and no longer comfortable, but newer departments at the facility have been equipped with proper furniture,” said one of the clerks.
They also complained about a lift that hadn’t been working since 2005, no toilets at their admin block and no air conditioning.
“We have to use the stairs to carry heavy boxes of files from the archives and go to other departments when nature calls.
We work in a suffocating environment while the senior people like the CEO sit on rotating chairs and well-ventilated fancy offices,” she added.
The angry staff chanted outside the CEO’s office until she came out to address them
in private.
