Hospital puts man, 89, on street

A Gauteng hospital has come under fire for discharging an elderly man with dementia without telling his family.

Philip Nkosi, 89, was taken by his family to the Helen Joseph Hospital on Tuesday with a heart problem.

But they did not find out that he had been discharged until the next day when a relative went to visit him.

The family complained to the hospital and began a desperate search for Nkosi across Johannesburg.

Nomsa Hlatshwayo, Nkosi's granddaughter, said the family was perplexed by the hospital staff's behaviour.

"I have never heard of this. How do you discharge someone so old and weak, and allow them to go off by themself?

"We searched all over the place and were worried that something bad had happened to granddad," said Hlatshwayo.

"Our biggest worry was that we did not know what was happening to him. Where did he sleep, what did he eat on such a cold night in Johannesburg?" said Hlatshwayo.

She described Nkosi's discharge from the hospital without informing the family as "pure negligence".

Nkosi was eventually found on Friday, in Orlando East, where he once lived.

"When we found him he was dirty, carrying a blanket and had urinated on himself. He could not remember what had happened to him," Hlatshwayo said.

Gauteng Health Department spokesman Simon Zwane said Nkosi was admitted suffering from a urinary tract infection.

"He was immediately attended to. He was discharged the following day with no signs of confusion," Zwane said.