EFF: ‘Patients go to state hospital to die, not live’
Hundreds of EFF members gathered at the Pietersburg Provincial Hospital on Tuesday to protest the death of a teenage mother's baby and hand over a memorandum to the MEC of Health, Dr Phophi Ramathuba.
POLOKWANE – Jossey Buthane, EFF Limpopo Secretary, addressed the protestors and complained about various issues at the hospital. The first issue addressed was the death of baby Dikotla.
He said the death of the unborn baby was due to malpractice of hospital specialists who gave the eight-month pregnant mother a wrong injection, which led to the death of the unborn baby at Mankweng Hospital.
Read more: #EFFmarch to Polokwane provincial hospital to seek justice for ‘ill-treated patients’
“People who are booked in at these facilities do not come for a holiday, they come because they are sick and need medical attention. They will never get better at these facilities,” Buthane said.
Grievances:
• Patients’ eating time: Buthane said the EFF knows patients have their last meal at 16:30 and then only eat again 15 hours later at around 10:00 the next day. This was because the hospital’s CEO “doesn’t want to pay kitchen staff/personnel overtime”. Buthane said this was disturbing, because patients admitted to the hospital after 17:00 are left without food due to the above-mentioned grievance.
• Heart specialists. “We have acknowledged this hospital doesn’t have cardiologists, as such the hospital most of the time requests assistance from Gauteng and doesn’t provide accommodation for such doctors,” Buthane said.
• Buthane complained about the non-responsive ambulance services. “We have seen on numerous occasions that people call the emergency services but their calls were never responded to, either physically or via phone.”
• He added there were no radiologists at the hospital.
“Patients are being taken to Mankweng Hospital for X-Ray scans which will later be examined at Rethabile Health Care Centre, which means an ambulance must be arranged to drive the patients to these destinations.”
• Consultation times. “People wait long hours to be consulted at the clinic within the hospital.”
He explained people often have to wait months before their consultation and before they can receive treatment, which can sometimes result in the death of the patient.
• Buthane voiced concern over the shortage of medication for patients with chronic diseases.
• The shortage of personnel across all departments, which leads to long queues at hospitals was another concern highlighted.
• One of the issues mentioned in the memorandum is the non-availability of doctors at the Seshego Hospital during the day.
The EFF demanded the issues be addressed and resolved “as soon as yesterday”.
The memo demanded answers within seven days.
Ramathuba, after signing acceptance of the memorandum, acknowledged the complaints from the EFF, saying many of the complaints are in the process of being addressed, while others are being investigated.
She said some people in hospitals are not doing their work and called on employees to take their work seriously.
The crowd dispersed peacefully after the protest and the handing over of the memorandum.
