Covid-19 patients are prioritised, family told ‘NOT GOOD ENOUGH’

Covid-19 patients do not have priority over other patients experiencing an emergency, and an eight-to-twelve hour turnaround time at the casualty ward is unacceptable.

This was the response from Health Spokesperson, Neil Shikwambana after a family in mourning accused staff of the Pietersburg Provincial Hospital of poor treatment after their sick mother’s health took a turn for the worst.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a member of the family told Polokwane Observer that her mother fell sick on Sunday, 3 January and they took her to a private doctor who referred them to the provincial hospital, indicating that she is in need of an intravenous line (IV) commonly known as a drip. They got to the hospital at 16:30 but were apparently told to wait.

The reason given was that the hospital was only treating Covid-19 and bleeding patients as emergency patients, she said.

“We had to wait for hours before we could open a file and during that time my mother was not offered a bed. When we enquired with the nurse on duty she told us that my mother was not an emergency patient and if she passes on it would have been her time to die.”

Following the nurse’s discomforting words the woman requested to speak to the person in charge. “Someone came to speak to me, saying they had a staff shortage and were only attending to emergency patients. This was at around 21:30.”

The elderly woman was only allocated a bed at around midnight, but she was still not admitted and no file was opened.

“At 04:30 the next morning a doctor attended to her and put her on a drip. The doctor indicated that she could be discharged once the drip was finished. We realised that we had left her daily medication for diabetes at home, and the hospital would not give her some so I had to drive back to Mankweng to fetch it. When I got back her drip was not finished and I left the hospital to go to work.”

The woman says when she left work at 15:30 her mother was still on the drip and had still not been admitted.

“We all left the hospital at around 20:30 and at around 01:00 the next morning we received a call that she had passed on.”

The family’s initial reaction to the news was shock.

“We did not expect to lose her. We usually take her to the hospital when she is unwell, but little did we know that this would be the last time. We strongly believe that had our mother not been denied healthcare due to not being a Covid-19 patient, she would have made it.”

Shikwambana said it was not best practice or protocol for the family to have been informed that Covid-19 patients have priority.

“Just because someone is a Covid-19 patient does not mean they get priority treatment over other patients. They also need to go through the same procedure.”

Shikwambana says an eight-to-twelve hour turnaround time for the casualty ward is also not acceptable.

“Turnaround times differ from one institution to another based on the average number of patients at the institution on a weekly basis. Also, every institution has doctors available at all times, the doctors are allowed to stay in their rooms until such time when they are called to attend to a patient in the casualty wards, when necessary.” He added that the hospital has enough healthcare workers, but that it does sometimes happen that they are not available due to other engagements.