After waiting more than 10 hours for his wife to be seen by a doctor, Silindokuhle Matabata says desperation drove him to break down in front of staff and patients at Rahima Moosa Mother and Child Hospital in Johannesburg, a moment he believes finally forced the system to respond.
What began as a normal Saturday for the Matabata family quickly turned into a harrowing ordeal.
Matabata said he and his wife attended church on Saturday morning but shortly afterwards his wife, who was believed to be two weeks pregnant, began bleeding.
“We went to a gynaecologist who referred us to Parkhurst Clinic the following day. From there, we were sent to Rahima Moosa Mother and Child Hospital,” he said.
The couple arrived at the hospital at about 9am on Monday.
“My wife was in pain. We opened a file and sat waiting but nothing happened,” Matabata said. “After four hours, she was taken to the fourth floor. There were women whose situations were far more serious than ours, but no doctor attended to them.”
He said they remained at the hospital until 7pm, with little information or help. As men are not allowed to wait on the fourth floor, Matabata said he spent most of the time sitting in his car, checking on his wife periodically.
“At about 8pm, I started panicking. We had left our 10-year-old child alone at home,” he said. “Just before 9pm, my wife gave up hope. She was in severe pain and begged doctors for an injection to ease it, but her pleas fell on deaf ears.”
It was at that point, Matabata said, that he could no longer contain his frustration.
“I broke down because I could not take it anymore,” he said.
Matabata said it was clear that healthcare workers were overwhelmed.
“You could see doctors running up and down. Seeing that they were too busy to help us, I asked [for us] to be released. I was told to sign a form stating that if anything happened, it would not be the hospital’s responsibility,” Matabata said.
After spending close to 10 hours without receiving care, he signed the form.
“I had no choice,” he said.
Matabata later posted about the ordeal on X, where the story caught the attention of a radio producer.
Shortly after signing the release form, he said a senior doctor attended to his wife.
“She explained that my wife had a blighted ovum, the body thinks it is pregnant, but there is no developing baby, only a sac. She told us they would review her again next week,” he said.
Despite eventually receiving an explanation, Matabata said the experience had left him deeply shaken.
“Even to get a doctor’s sick note stamped, we had to wait,” he said. “The service was extremely poor.”
The Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa’s (Denosa’s) Gauteng provincial secretary, Bongani Mazibuko, said Rahima Moosa Hospital continues to struggle with a critical shortage of healthcare workers, particularly nurses.
“There is a high influx of patients from outside the hospital’s catchment area,” Mazibuko said. “This creates constant pressure and makes it difficult to attend to patients adequately.”
The incident comes amid ongoing scrutiny of Rahima Moosa Mother and Child Hospital by the Office of the Health Ombud, which has previously raised concerns about patient safety, staffing shortages, governance failures and long waiting times at the facility.
In past investigations, the Health Ombud has emphasised that prolonged delays in care, poor communication with patients, and inadequate staffing pose serious risks, particularly in maternity and obstetric cases.
Matabata said his experience reflected those systemic failures.
“No-one should have to collapse in tears just to get help in a hospital,” he said.
According to the department, the hospital’s quality assurance unit conducted a preliminary review of the incident, including direct engagement with the patient.
“The department can confirm that the patient was clinically processed, triaged and managed in accordance with established public hospital protocols, which prioritise patients based on clinical urgency rather than order of arrival,” the department said.
It said the patient’s file and vital signs were completed at 1.52pm in the gynaecology admissions area and that she was transferred to the gynaecology ward at about 4pm for further assessment.
“The patient was assessed by a medical intern later in the evening and subsequently reviewed and counselled by a senior doctor once an emergency case requiring immediate clinical intervention had been concluded,” the department said.
It added that the patient and her husband were advised on follow-up care and instructed to return should her condition deteriorate.
While acknowledging that prolonged waiting times can be distressing, the health department said public hospitals operated within a triage-based system, particularly in emergency and admissions units.
“This clinical reality may result in unavoidable delays for patients whose conditions are assessed as stable at the time of presentation,” the department said, adding that fluctuating patient volumes and emergency cases can place additional pressure on available staff.
The department confirmed that the hospital had apologised to the patient and conducted a follow-up to confirm her clinical wellbeing.
It said its management was reviewing the incident as part of quality-improvement efforts, including strengthening patient flow management, improving communication around waiting times, reinforcing triage and escalation protocols, and ensuring that cases where patients wished to leave before senior clinical review were appropriately escalated.
TimesLIVE
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