Hospital must be held accountable

THE Inkatha Freedom Party in KwaZulu-Natal is outraged by allegations that the body of 79-year-old Lucy David was returned to her family in an appalling state after she had passed on at Grey’s Hospital.

It is totally unacceptable that a patient’s body is returned to family with tubes still sticking out and wounds left unstitched. We can only imagine the trauma that the family must have experienced on seeing their loved one in such a state. Every patient in public health care facilities must be treated with respect and dignity even in death.

It does not mean that once a person passes on there are no family members who are grieving and who would want to provide a dignified funeral for their loved one. Such disrespect on the part of hospital staff indicates that they do not take their work seriously.

There must be a greater level of accountability on the part of those responsible at hospitals to ensure that such callous conduct is not allowed to go unpunished.

The management at Grey’s Hospital must institute an urgent investigation into who was responsible and ensure that such indignity does not befall any other family. The hospital must take responsibility by providing a full report back to the family of Ms David and thereby bring closure. As a public institution, Grey’s Hospital management is accountable to the public and is expected to be responsive to concerns regarding the conduct of its staff. Such incidents serve to undermine public confidence in our health care sector and brings disrepute to the KZN Department of Health.

The IFP empathises with the family of the late Ms David and pray that they will get closure to this traumatic incident.

NCAMSILE NKWANYANA MPL IFP KZN Provincial Spokesperson on Health