ROWOVERHOSPITAL SERVICE
300 residents march against poor treatment of patients
ABOUT 300 Khayelitsha residents marched to the Khayelitsha Hospital yesterday, demanding better services after several residents had complained to the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) about poor treatment of patients.
The hospital was officially opened on April 17 last year.
One of those who complained to the TAC was 74- year- old Nowandile Thayinga, pictured above.
She said she spent three days sitting on a bench inside the hospital before she received medical attention for a bout of diarrhoea.
The hospital cost R632 million to build and has 230 beds.
TAC spokeswoman Amelia Mfiki said after receiving many complaints from patients about poor service at the hospital, they had had a meeting with the hospital’s chief executive, Dr Anwar Kharwa two months ago, and he had promised to get back to them with solutions to the complaints. The TAC said it was still awaiting a response.
“We are tired of the way the hospital is treating us, nurses swearing at us. We are asking Kharwa to address our problems,” she said. Protesters also want 11 locum doctors reinstated. The doctors, the TAC said, were hired through the department’s emergency funding.
However, the funding had been terminated.
“We want those doctors back,” she said.
Thayinga said: “I spent three days parked on the bench waiting for people to assist me. My feet were swollen and I wasn’t eating anything because I couldn’t keep food in.”
Masixole Nkawule was stabbed in the chest last June and admitted to the hospital via the area’s day hospital.
He said he waited for medical assistance with the same draining pipe that the day hospital doctors had inserted and that Khayelitsha hospital staff had not checked on him.
“The bottle that contains the drained blood was filling up and I had to go empty it myself. I was in so much pain throughout the night and when I saw a doctor passing by in the morning I begged him for some pain tablets.”
Noxolo Bunu, pictured left below, suffered a miscarriage on December 10 and arrived at the hospital at 7.30am.
She claims she was treated at midnight.
Health Department spokesman Sithembiso Magubane said the complaints received from the TAC had been investigated and were being resolved.
Magubane said Health MEC Theuns Botha had acknowledged the TAC’s complaints and said they would be discussed at the hospital’s next board meeting.