Patients wait in pain and in vain
Lone nurse on duty at Empilweni
HELP! Help! I am dying.” This was the desperate plea of a patient overwhelmed by pain while waiting for hours at the Empilweni Health Centre in Gompo.
The Dispatch spoke to the woman at the centre on Saturday night. She said she had been there for two-and-a-half hours without being attended to.
At 9.30pm, the Dispatch saw only one nurse on duty to care for eight patients – four in the waiting room and four in consultation rooms.
We were told that two nurses had called in sick.
Health spokesman Sizwe Kupelo said when they realised there was only one nurse on duty, “nurses were reallocated from the maternity section to help”.
He said of the two nurses who were supposed to be on duty, one was off sick, while the other “did not report for duty”.
By 10pm when the Dispatch left, none of the patients in the waiting room had been seen by any health staff member.
A woman from Scenery Park, who was wailing continuously and too distressed to give her name, managed to say she had an unbearable pain in her head.
Her companion, Luyanda Velem, said he had brought the woman to the centre just after 7pm.
“If they are unable to help they must give me a referral letter,” he said.
Velem’s attempts to get the letter from the lone nurse were rebuffed as she was too busy with other patients.
A man arrived at the centre with blood on his face and chest. He had a cut on his forehead. Two security guards immediately directed him to a consultation room.
In the waiting room, Nomisile Kheswa, 59, of Phumlani outside East London, was nursing a wound in her leg from a dog bite. She took a taxi to the centre after she was bitten on Saturday afternoon, and had been waiting since 7pm.
“I am still waiting. I am in pain. I wish they could at least give me painkillers,” she said.
Nompendulo Mpiti and Madeyi Cezula accompanied Victoria Noncelela to the centre for suspected high sugar levels. They arrived soon after 6pm.
“We ended up spending the whole night waiting there,” Mpiti said.
Baphiwe Jack of Duncan Village arrived at 5.15pm with her uncle Monde Lele who could not walk or speak. They, too, ended up waiting for treatment. They did not know why there was such a long delay.
“We registered on arrival, but when we took him to see the nurse, we were told to go back to the waiting room. We have been waiting since,” Jack said.
The Dispatch called yesterday and Jack said Lele had finally been seen at 11.30pm.
“We were then given a referral letter,” she said.
An off-duty nurse, who spoke to the Dispatch on condition of anonymity, said the centre had a dire shortage of staff.
However, the nurse said it had never happened that there was only one person to see all the patients at the centre.
Kupelo said they were investigating why the second nurse did not report for duty.
“It is totally unacceptable that one nurse would be expected to serve all the patients the whole night,” he said. —