Concern as death stalks hospital

Staff blame overcrowding for psychiatric patients’ demise

THE last time Pule More saw his brother Lawrence alive was in the psychiatric ward at South Rand Hospital, in Johannesburg, three weeks ago.

“He had a psychotic episode and had been at South Rand for about a week, but the last time I visited him he seemed much calmer. My sister was going to ask for a weekend pass out for him.”

But she never got the chance. A few days later, on May 12, Lawrence was found dead outside the hospital. He had either jumped or fallen from a toilet window in the hospital’s general ward.

His death is not an isolated incident – the following day, an unnamed female psychiatric patient also jumped from a window and was later transferred to the Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital where she died.

Staff at South Rand say the incidents are related to severe overcrowding since the casualty department at Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital in Soweto was closed for renovations in June last year.

“In the past, we used to admit about five patients a day, but now we take about 10 patients a shift,” said a nurse who works in the general ward at the hospital.

Another nurse said the dramatic increase in the intake of psychiatric patients was affecting the day-to-day running of the casualty ward.

Gauteng provincial health department spokesman Steve Mabona confirmed the two deaths this year, as well as the death of a patient “in 2013-14”.

He said More’s death had been reported to the department and additional security personnel had been assigned.

“There are burglar bars in the psychiatry ward.

“The first incident occurred in the medical ward where the burglar bar had been removed. The second incident occurred in the female psychiatry ward where the patient forcefully removed burglar bars,” Mabona said.

Police are probing More’s death and a rape which took place at the hospital in January.