Name and shame uncaring nurse

THERE are many negative aspects to social media, not least of which is the spread of misinformation that may be perceived as fact, even where there is evidence to the contrary.

However, it can also be used for good, as a patient at St Mary’s Hospital in Pinetown demonstrated last week.

The woman took a video of a nurse abusing another patient who, as it turned out, had only a few hours left to live.

The video was then uploaded to social media, where it gained attention and spread quickly.

What the video shows conjures up our worst fears of treatment in South Africa’s public hospitals.

The patient concerned was Nozipho Ngcobo, a nurse herself, and ill with pneumonia.

Ngcobo, who worked in the Eastern Cape, had returned to her home province to receive treatment, but obviously had no idea what lay in store for her.

The video shows her on a bed in a ward in an obviously weakened state. She moves slowly and with difficulty.

Notwithstanding Ngcobo’s condition, a St Mary’s nurse berates her for not using a bedpan, and speaks loudly so that other patients can easily hear what should be a private conversation between a patient and a medical professional.

Only this nurse is not professional at all. Her conduct was reprehensible.

Where the mascot of her career, Florence Nightingale, is known for her compassion, this as yet unidentified nurse treated Ngcobo with utter disdain and subjected her to the indignity of changing her adult nappy without drawing the curtains around her bed.

Asked to comment for our article, the Democratic Nurses’ Organisation of SA said they had raised a number of issues with the department, including working conditions, staff shortages and medical equipment, “but not all is attended to”.

Quite what any of this has to do with a nurse blatantly abusing a helpless woman is unclear.

The health department was equally limp-wristed in its response, only able to muster up the understatement that “the nurse appears to be addressing the patient in a manner that does not convey empathy”.

What was required of both institutions was an unequivocal condemnation of what was obviously despicable behaviour, but, to their shame, neither could summon up the courage to voice it.

This nurse, who does not deserve to play any role in what is a noble profession, should be named and shamed as a warning to others.

Ill, vulnerable people deserve better than to be subjected to indignity when they are at their weakest.