WATCH | Patient lying in filth at Thembisa Hospital prompts visit by Gauteng health MEC

Gauteng health and wellness MEC Nomantu Nkomo-Ralehoko visited Thembisa Provincial Tertiary Hospital on Friday after a video showed a mental patient lying in filth at the facility.

The video clip shows a patient tossing and turning on the floor between hospital beds, with trash strewn all over the place. One person feeds a patient on a bed at the far end of the room. The person who shot the video gives a running commentary on the situation.

“This is not on,” the man says.

“Guys I am here in Thembisa Hospital right now as we speak. Look how our human beings are being stored. I may call it stored because you may not stay or sleep in such a place. I have brought my boy. Look at the people, look at how filthy the floor is. There is no nurse, there is no doctor. There is none.

“My brother here is feeding his brother because there is no one. There is no food, there is nothing. Let us try something guys as a community: councillors, mayors, MEC, health department let us come here and see what is going on at Thembisa Hospital.”

The video prompted Nkomo-Ralehoko to visit the hospital. She said the patients were in a “passage” waiting to be examined by doctors to determine if they should be admitted or treated as outpatients.

“When we arrived, indeed, those were psychiatric patients that we received. There were about 17 of them that we admitted. Unfortunately, we didn’t have space for them to go to because they were still waiting for the doctors to come and check them, like psychiatrists and your physicians that must check them, and after those observations we are able to admit them,” said Nkomo-Ralehoko.

“While they were still in that process, one of the family members of the patients came in and then took a video of where some of those patients were, which is a waiting area where they were waiting to be taken to the doctor.”

Nkomo-Ralehoko said she had to “quickly come”.

“In my presence, we had to look into the wards, bring in some other team from the other doctors who can assist us and physicians who can quickly check what is the situation,” she said.

The hospital managed to allocate beds to the 17 patients.

“There is one female out of those 17. So, she will be going to the psychiatric ward where we have enough beds. The rest will go to another ward that is empty that we have organised for the beds,” she said.

“... There are two wards that we have organised now. Even those that are still waiting to be diagnosed by the doctors so that we know whether they will be outpatients or they will be in, just to normalise this environment that was not seen correctly out there.”

Nkomo-Ralehoko said some of the patients “were wild”.

“They were fighting among each other. They were breaking things when they arrived but the doctors managed to see them. They had to give them a diagnosis and understand what is it that we can do in terms of treating them ...”

She said by the time she left the hospital, the situation had returned to normal.

“They are relaxed as we speak now. Some are sleeping, some are being accommodated. But we want to thank all South Africans, especially those who were not malicious when they saw the video.

“They realised that something is wrong, something must be done. And we don’t want it only (to be done) to Thembisa. Tell us in every hospital where you find a problem. Don’t send it on social media.”

She urged the public to send such videos to the authorities rather than share them on social media.

“Send it to us as the authorities so that we can address that problem because when you go to the hospital there are specific observations that must be done before you can be admitted and those patients were waiting for those observations.

“But because they are not normal, they are not like me and you. Where you wait in bed or you wait in a room, they had to do those things that they were doing which were not correct things of trying to fight, grab others and throw them on the floor because even the one that was sleeping on the floor it was not because we don’t have beds. There are beds but they were fighting and then they threw him on the floor. But we are encouraging every citizen to take this issue  of mental health seriously.”

Some of the patients were from different parts of the province, Nkomo-Ralehoko said.

“Some of the patients that are here are not coming from Thembisa. They are coming from different parts of the province. But we can’t say this is Thembisa Hospital, they don’t have space for you when you are sick.”

She urged parents to look after their children.

“They must not indulge in drugs. They must not indulge in liquor because some of the incidents that are here, it’s because those children are on drugs.

“But because of that situation, we can’t just say they must go to rehab centres without being checked first and even assisted where we can as doctors. Some have left their medication. They are telling us ‘we have been taking medication, we have lapsed’. Hence now they are back in the situation where they are in.”

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