Patients suffer as Covid-19 infections leave hospitals in chaos

More cracks are beginning to show in Gauteng’s public health system as climbing Covid-19 cases continue filling up beds and waiting areas in hospitals, including Johannesburg’s Charlotte Maxeke Academic Hospital, where a patient claims she was horrified by her experience.

Lutendo Kutama was discharged from the hospital’s maternity ward on Thursday, after enduring three days of hunger and trauma, she claimed.

Having carried her pregnancy to term she was referred to the hospital on Friday 10 July, by the Hillbrow Antenatal Clinic.

Despite being an at-risk patient, whose high fever was flagged on arrival, she was not isolated and no attempts were made to test her, she claimed. She was, instead, taken to a waiting area where some people were under investigation for Covid-19 infections.

She said when she was finally admitted to the maternity ward, she was already hungry from over 12 hours of waiting, while nobody from her family would be allowed to bring her food until the next day.

“The whole of Friday, I didn’t eat a thing. We only ate about 10pm. The following day again they didn’t give us food. We had to eat late. On Sunday, the doctor, who was attending us, said they were not going to operate as it was a Sunday and some of the doctors were not on duty.”

After delivering a healthy baby boy, she was to be left alone again for hours back at her ward. When she came from anaesthesia, her baby was next to her, had soiled his nappy, and she was in so much pain she could hardly muster up the strength to lift her upper body so she could tend to her child. Pain medication was not administered for hours as she lay hungry and weak from surgery.

It was only after she cried out to nurses on night duty, unable to bear the pain, that some relief was administered. By this time, the pouch on her catheter had overflowed and her wound was bleeding, she alleged.

Nevertheless, Kutama was cleared to be discharged the next morning, after a doctor told her although she normally would have stayed a few days more for monitoring, it was far safer for her and her baby to recover at home.

While talking to her sister on the phone, asking her to fetch them, Kutama unknowingly angered a nurse who overheard her conversation. She took issue with the fact that she assumed just because a doctor had told her she was free to go that she would receive her paperwork and leave.

“We are still busy with other patients and we will do your paperwork when we are ready,” she was apparently told. By midday she had been sworn at and told she would be punished for trying to rush the nurses. She spent the entire day waiting and left late that afternoon.

Questions regarding this incident were sent to the Gauteng health department. Spokesperson Philani Mhlungu said answers would be conveyed after an investigation was concluded.

Incidences such as these are not new or surprising, said Democratic Alliance MPL and member of the Gauteng health portfolio committee Jack Bloom.

He was, however, concerned that crowded waiting rooms and lack of space for social distancing put patients such as Kutama at even higher risk. He said innovative solutions such as tents for waiting patients or the use of spaces such as underground parking areas should be considered to avoid the heightened risks of transmission among patients and between patients and staff.

Covid-19 cases among health department staff were rife at major Gauteng health facilities, while complaints about lack of N95 masks and other personal protective equipment prompted unions such as Nehawu and the Young Nurses Indaba Trade Union to call on national government to intervene.

Gauteng MEC for health Bandile Masuku on Thursday said the only way to get through the current wave of Covid-19 infections was to have a smooth-running hospital bed management system as the province only had 8 730 acute and intensive car beds in the public and private sector.