‘Flood’ of pregnant patients at Mamelodi Hospital
This comes after a 19-year-old woman, who is eight months pregnant, was allegedly made to sleep in the waiting room with no assistance from doctors.
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The Mamelodi regional hospital has experienced an influx of maternity patients, according to hospital chief executive Dr Naing Soe.
He blamed the influx on clinics such as Stanza Bopape clinic suffering from a lack of staff, while the Tshwane district hospital had over 40 maternity beds, which could not be used following the hospital’s conversion to a Covid-19 facility.
“Mamelodi Hospital previously delivered about 700 babies in a month, however, since March, we have delivered more than 1,000 babies each month.
“Since Friday morning we have had to divert ambulances carrying maternity patients because we are overloaded.”
He said the hospital also had to be wary when assisting patients as some pregnant mothers had already contracted Covid-19.
“We have even had approximately 150 staff members of the regional hospital test positive for Covid-19,” said Soe.
“Most positive cases were from the maternity and casualty wards.”
Soe said, together with previous upgrades to the maternity ward’s capacity, a process of adding 15 more beds had begun.
Soe was responding to an enquiry from Rekord after an Eersterust resident reported that her 19-year-old pregnant daughter-in-law was suffering at the hospital as she had not yet seen a doctor.
Raykie Attwell said the mum-to-be had been referred to the hospital by a local clinic.
“On Thursday morning, I took her for a check-up and since then no one attended to her,” Attwell said.
“According to her, she is sleeping on a bench as there are no beds. She is scared.”
Attwell said they tried to speak to hospital security but they were not very helpful.
Soe, however, rebutted this: “We will never allow a patient to sleep in a waiting area as it’s against hospital policy.”
Soe said maternity patients would witness a delay in assistance due to Covid-19 regulations and the lack of staff at the hospital’s exposal.
“We also cannot attend to all visitors of the hospital as we need to evaluate which are emergencies.”
This article first appeared on Rekord and was republished with permission.
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