Patients left naked in hospital ward

2012-08-03 11:48

(File) (Shutterstock)

East London - The Eastern Cape health department has promised to investigate a report that patients at a hospital were left naked in a cold ward for at least two days.

This comes after an Mdantsane woman told The Dispatch about how she found her 80-year-old husband naked in his hospital bed at Cecilia Makiwane Hospital.

Gilbert Gidana was admitted to the hospital last Thursday after he had a stroke.

When his wife, Nontozakhe Gidana, and son, Bhekuyise Gidana, visited him on Sunday, they were stunned to find him naked in his ward. Other patients in the ward were also unclothed.

In a letter to the hospital, the mother and son wrote: “I was shocked by what I saw. He was nude. He had no pyjamas on. The explanation was that there was no clean linen at the time. It was a cold winter’s day.

“It was humiliation of the worst kind.  The ward was cold and stinking. Can the hospital explain to me why my husband was subjected to this kind of humiliation?”

Nontozakhe Gidana told the Dispatch that hospital authorities told her not to leave any clothes with her husband in case they got lost.

Provincial health spokesperson, Sizwe Kupelo, said: “We strongly condemn the incident, it’s a clear violation of human rights. It’s no different from what we discovered in Queenstown at the beginning of the year.

“It’s unacceptable that a patient should be subjected to such conditions.  We are going to do an investigation to ascertain who is responsible for this.”

- News24