Georgians should be grateful for excellent hospital

Leonard Williams, George:

I'm originally from Queenstown in the Eastern Cape. I've studied in both Gauteng and Eastern Cape but have spent most of my working career in the Eastern Cape. Recently I moved to George and unfortunately I fractured a previously fractured right tibia and needed urgent medical assistance. Currently I am hospitalised at George Hospital.

Going into theatre tomorrow, 14 February. Upon my arrival at the hospital (at the first security Guard/s) I was met with excellent service that I'm not quite used to.

The professionalism, the integrity, respect started from that front gate all the way up the ladder to the doctors and even management. In my home town Queenstown, we have Frontier Hospital and we are used to knowing Frontier as being dirty, smelly, unprofessional staff, short-staffed, unpleasant smells throughout the hospital, unhygienic all round, elderly patients not being cleaned regularly (their family members sometimes have to clean them), electricity and water going off for days on end without prior warning, the list is endless! At George Hospital, I had to make sure I'm not at a private hospital. It was shocking. It's the complete opposite to what I'm used to in the Eastern Cape!! To all residents of George and surrounding areas: please stop complaining about waiting 30 minutes for your files - back home we'd wait all day and by 16:30 get told to come back the following day because they ran out of time. You should all be grateful that you are being treated with dignity and respect, not to mention humanity.

Back home, you'd have a stab wound in your neck but you better hope the people on duty are not on tea break or lunch, you might get told just hang on I'm busywhile you're busy bleeding to death!! I can mention too many things and these may seem too bad to be true.

George Hospital has shown me in a very very short space of time that integrity, respect, humanity, can be received from public institutions. So, to all George and surrounding areas' residents - BE GRATEFUL FOR WHAT YOU HAVE IN THE WESTERN CAPE. You are blessed beyond words! I would also like to mention the overall cleanliness of the town, hardly any potholes, no "safe abortion" posters on the post office walls (like we have in Queenstown), no cattle walking around in the main roads around town, no robots in town being out of order for decades, no garbage bags lying all over the streets because it's not been collected for three or sometimes four weeks!! Be grateful and proud of your town.

Everyone playing a role in maintaining these high standards of this developing city: Keep it up, you are doing a great job! Well done George! I absolutely love it here!