Family blame hospital for death
AMITCHELLS Plain family has accused both the Mitchells Plain Hospital and the Emergency Medical Services of tardiness and displaying an uncaring attitude after a sick family member was not attended to on time. Esau Anthony, 70, died last month, with his family blaming his death on poor service delivery. They say it took more than two hours and three different ambulances before he was transported to hospital, where they waited for hours for him to be attended to.
However the Department of Health has hit back, saying all available resources in the area were notified of Anthony’s need to be transported, but due to his excessive weight, he could not be transported by a single crew.
The department offered its “heartfelt condolences” to the family, spokesman Mark van der Heever said. Anthony was diabetic and had recently been diagnosed with leukaemia.
His sister, Breanda Noach, said despite calling an ambulance immediately after noticing that his condition was deteriorating, at least two ambulances turned him down, saying they did not have the right personnel or equipment to transport him.
“The first ambulance from Groote Schuur Hospital where my brother was treated for his chronic diseases couldn’t help him because it only had one driver and it had no wheelchair or a stretcher for him to lie down, it could only take sitting patients.
“I was asked to call a Metro ambulance, but when it arrived it also didn’t have a wheelchair and a stretcher. The only thing they did was to check his blood pressure and sugar, and found his sugar to be 30.5. They couldn’t even lift him up, saying that he was too obese.” When a third ambulance arrived, the crew insisted he be taken to Mitchells Plain Hospital as it was the closest facility.
“According to the coding system that they use at the hospital my brother wasn’t considered an emergency so they made him join the queue. I still find it odd that he was made to wait when my brother was almost into a diabetic coma because of high sugar, yet he wasn’t considered an emergency,” she said.
Van der Heever denies that ambulances didn’t have stretchers, saying “all our emergency vehicles have stretchers, but this patient required several stretchers, additional human resources as well as personnel with a specific skill set in order to move him”.
Despite Anthony being given a few months to live when he was diagnosed with leukemia in January, his sister feels that with appropriate attention at the hospital, “he would probably be alive today”.