'Staff eat patients' food'

2003-07-28 08:35

Bridget Ducasse

Pietermaritzburg - Allegations of abuse and neglect at Townhill Hospital have prompted the health department to appoint a three-person investigating team.

The mental facility's record of negligence took a turn for the worse last week when yet another patient was reported missing.

"Veronica Mondi went missing from the psycho-geriatric ward and the hospital had the dog unit out to look for her," said a source close to the hospital.

In another incident, Bhekisile Dlamini was trying to escape from a seclusion room in one of the hospital's high security female sections when she strangled herself by accident.

The source said the mental facility is trying to copy Fort Napier by opening a child assessment facility.

"Some staff members still come to work drunk, they hit the patients and eat their food. How can they have children at a place like this?" said the source.

According to the source, two patients burned down their seclusion rooms. The source said these patients should have been thoroughly searched.

"In one case the sister only discovered what had happened at 06:30 when the fire had been started about 02:00."

It is also alleged that in June last year a patient was sexually molested by other patients.

"They stuck a foreign object up her vagina and although she screamed hysterically, no staff came to help her."

The source said the hospital is gearing up for a visit by the Council for Health Service Accreditations of Southern Africa (Cohsasa), which awards accreditations. This is why the hospital is anxious not to have these kinds of allegations come to light.

The recent incidents are not the first to raise questions about negligence at the facility.

During November and December last year, a man committed suicide, a woman was found dead at the hospital and an alleged robbery took place in which two nursing sisters driving a state vehicle were stopped by patients who forced them out of their car.

In December 2000, a patient at the hospital died of a brain haemorrhage after being beaten by a fellow inmate in a seclusion room.

In February 2002, another patient tore up a blanket and hanged himself. In the same month a 60-year old diabetes patient, Roy Cox, walked out of the hospital and was later found dead inside the hospital grounds.

Police spokesperson Captain Joshua Gwala has confirmed that inquests have been opened in the cases of Dlamini and Mondi.

Provincial Health spokesman Makhosini Nkosi said the department is shocked by the allegations and the team will have two weeks to report to Superintendent-General Professor Ronald Green-Thompson.

"They will also need to establish if departmental protocols governing the handling of patients in general and mental patients in particular have been violated or not," said Nkosi.

The investigating team will comprise a medical doctor, a senior nurse and a senior nursing tutor.

Nkosi said Green-Thompson will also ask Cohsasa to do a post-accreditation assessment of the hospital to establish if there has been a decline in the standards at Townhill after the institution was accredited last year.

Nkosi said the department was not aware of the allegations until contacted by the Witness, but said that until proven otherwise, the claims remain allegations. Townhill management said that although escapes still occur, the majority of patients are caught inside the grounds. Management added that an adolescent unit is to be opened at Townhill Hospital because many adolescents require psychiatric care.

It was confirmed that a patient set fire to her mattress, but management said searching patients is difficult in the light of the new patients' rights charter.

- The Witness