Nurse slams Gauteng hospitals
2001-07-02 11:09
Johannesburg - A senior nurse at Johannesburg Hospital has launched a vitriolic attack on her fellow health workers after she was involved in two life-saving operations on critical patients who were victims of neglect by nurses and doctors from the hospitals which referred them.
The nursing sister, who has been in the profession for more than 10 years, also fired criticism at the provincial health authorities for closing down the hospital's trauma and intensive care units and theatres without consulting health workers.
Patricia Mpolokeng (not her real name) told City Press she witnessed the amputation of a nine-year-old boy's leg at the hospital because he was not properly treated at the Sebokeng hospital from where he was referred.
Tebogo Dlamini (9) of Orange Farm, Extension 1, was involved in a car accident last week Saturday and admitted to Sebokeng hospital.
He had a broken femur.
Mpolokeng said according to the records from Sebokeng hospital the patient was never treated or assessed until Monday night when he was transferred. His muscles and nerves suffered severe damage as a result of not undergoing an operation.
When he was admitted to Johannesburg Hospital he had little feeling left in his leg and his circulation was poor.
The hospital staff took X-rays of the boy's leg.
The vascular surgeon attempted to rescue the boy's leg but it was too late.
"While operating on the boy we were praying for a miracle, but his leg was beyond repair.
"This is nothing but negligence and now this young boy's future is ruined.
"He should have been referred the very day he was admitted," Mpolokeng said.
The boy's leg was amputated to the dismay of his grandmother, Betty Dlamini, who could not keep from crying when told her grandson had to leave the hospital without his leg.
When City Press visited Tebogo on Thursday last week he was still in his bed, looking confused.
Dlamini, who educates Tebogo with her pension money, said she was distraught about the fact that her grandson's future was hanging in the balance.
In the second case in a matter of 24 hours, Mpolokeng and the hospital surgeons had to operate on MS Dlamini, a teenager with a distended abdomen, referred from the Far East Rand Hospital.
Again, she slated the hospital staff for not giving the patient adequate treatment.
According to records from the Far East Rand Hospital there was no pregnancy test administered to exclude the possibility that the patient could be pregnant until hours later when her condition had deteriorated even further.
She had a ruptured ectopic pregnancy - a pregnancy which occurs outside the womb - and was bleeding profusely when she was admitted to Johannesburg hospital.
Mpolokeng and her colleagues had to work tirelessly to save her.
"The patient needed a blood transfusion as a result of severe internal bleeding and she had to be operated on. She was bleeding profusely inside."
Mpolokeng said the decision by the provincial health department to close down wards at hospitals was putting a further strain on the already demotivated health workers.
"We end up not having space to accommodate trauma patients. Patients who have not fully recovered have to be moved out of the trauma ICU so other critical patients can be accommodated."
She emphasised that violence in the country was putting health workers under unbearable pressure.
Povincial health spokesperson Popo Maja said health workers who are found to be negligent in carrying out their duties will be harshly dealt with by the department.