Desperate nurse’s plea to health minister on ‘hell-like’ hospital conditions

Mbewu describes ‘negligence’ that led to nurses getting Covid-19

The dire circumstances faced by health workers in the Eastern Cape have been laid bare in a heartrending letter from a nurse to health minister Zweli Mkhize.

SS Gida Hospital nurse Monica Mbewu she said she wrote the letter because the district health office had not responded to health workers’ grievances. “They have not given us a chance to speak. Instead of engaging us, they threatened our jobs,” Mbewu told the Dispatch on Wednesday.

Mbewu, who has worked at the Keiskammahoek hospital since 2010, describes in the letter the “negligence” that has led to her and her colleagues contracting Covid-19.

“I write to you while isolated at home after testing positive for coronavirus. I felt sick on June 20 and eventually tested on the 26th, and got my results back on July 6.

“This was only to confirm what I and many of my colleagues knew to be true — that we were infected by [sic] the coronavirus as a result of gross negligence by the hospital we work for in the Eastern Cape,” Mbewu wrote.

She said her children, girls aged 10, 15 and 17, also tested positive.

“There was a time when we were all extremely sick in my house. I am grateful we all seem to be over the worst now because not many of those I work with, and those I have treated as a nurse at SS Gida Hospital, have been as fortunate as we have been in my family.”

She described the conditions at the hospital as “hell-like”.

She said the hospitals remained understaffed and faced chronic shortages of staff and medical equipment.

“So even before Covid-19 struck, we were already a stretched health system,” Mbewu said.

“But not even in our wildest dreams as health workers did we ever imagine that we would be in [such] grave a health crisis as we are now. We know the inherent risks involved in the kind of work we do. We know that whenever we treat sick people, we risk getting infections. With highly infectious diseases such as Covid-19, we know the risk is acute and yet we do our work with utmost dedication.”

However, it “disheartened” her that their lives were being placed at risk by a lack of empathy from management and political leadership.

She said nurses at SS Gida and nearby hospitals were still forced to work with “makeshift PPE”.

She said she was puzzled that the entire hospital had not closed because most of the staff were infected.

Mbewu said: “Health care workers are forced to reuse disposable gowns in the hospital, and there has been no identifiable change from the past in the manner highly infectious clothing is cleaned.

“To show the dangers of this, in the isolation ward meant for Covid-19 positive patients at SS Gida, all the nurses working night duty were off work between June 18 and June 27 because all of them tested positive, and some fell seriously sick.

“We are of the firm view that had we had proper PPEs, this situation could have been averted. Even the contract nurses that have been employed have also tested positive for the virus. Some of these nurses come from high-risk areas such as Cape Town, and were employed and sent straight to the wards without ever getting quarantined or tested.”

Health MEC Sindiswa Gomba’s spokesperson Judy Ngoloyi did not respond to a query about the number of nurses who had tested positive at the hospital.

Mbewu said hospital staff had tried raising the issues with the district office and its manager, but threats were made against their jobs.

“What must we do, minister? What would it take for national government to intervene? Should we all get sick and maybe die before the department realises the kind of danger we are in? What will happen to the health needs of the people of Keiskammahoek when that happens? Why is there so much hatred for nurses by those in charge of hospitals, and those making political decisions on what should happen in hospitals?”

They have not given us a chance to speak. Instead of engaging us, they threatened our jobs