Soweto hospital nightmare: patient describes her litany of horrors

While private hospitals are known to provide comfort and top-class care for their patients, a Gauteng woman has described the horror and trauma she suffered at the Clinix Tshepo-Themba Private Hospital in Soweto last month.

From allegations of dirty linen being moved from one patient’s bed to the next, to urine-filled bedpans left exposed throughout the day, to patients with leaking wounds left to fend for themselves — this is the horrific image the former patient detailed in her official complaint to the hospital.

TimesLIVE Premium has also seen the complaint document.

The woman, who requested that she not be named, is demanding accountability from the hospital after alleged mistreatment of not only herself, but other patients who shared a ward with her.

In her complaint, the woman, who was admitted after suffering breathing problems, claims her three-day stay at the hospital was characterised by neglect and abuse — not just of her but of fellow patients.

“I still have nightmares about [one patient’s] screams when she fell trying to clean herself from leakage of her surgery wound,” the woman said.

Giving details on this patient’s ordeal, the woman said this patient had seemingly undergone an operation which left her wounds leaking of water. The complainant alleged the amount of leakage was so much it left her hospital bed drenched.

“She would be left in the soaking wet bed for hours and hours,” the complainant alleged.

“I have never seen such cruelty in my life ... This woman suffered at the hands of the hospital. I don’t know if it’s not something to be concerned about that an operation wound would leak so much water that it leaves the bed soaking wet.”

The woman detailed how, at one point, the patient expressed how she felt unclean and sticky due to the secretion and asked for water to bathe. She was allegedly handed the water in a basin by a nurse who did not care to help her.

“The patient fell and the basin went straight after her. She screamed. I stood up to go and help her and to my shock, there was a nurse standing right by the door with her back turned against our ward, not bothered by the sound of the basin that fell or the patient’s screams,” the woman said.

She claimed the nurse, with an “annoyed face”, only attended to the patient when she, the complainant, requested help for her.

Another patient in the same ward had seemingly suffered injuries to both legs and was left immobile and unable to go to the toilet.

She was given a bedpan for use.

“She needed help getting the pan in position. Every time this happens when I was awake, she would ask [me] for help and I would have to get out my bed, as weak as I was, to go help her. The full pan would stay in the ward all day, causing us all to be subjected to a ward smelling of urine.”

The complainant said she too experienced shoddy treatment.

At one point, she could not breathe while in the ward and her continuous efforts to raise the alarm through her bedside bell yielded no results. She alleged that she ended up calling her husband who was at home. He called the hospital and only then did a nurse come over to assist her.

But that is not where her ordeal ended.

I can only hope that the families of the other patients I was with in the ward stand up for their loved ones too because the stay at the hospital was like a scene out of a horror movie.
— Clinix Tshepo-Themba Private Hospital patient

The woman alleged on one of the days, a nurse was changing the bedding in their ward and instead of providing fresh linen, allegedly move the bedding from a previously occupied bed to hers.

The woman said she raised her concerns about hygiene and the possibility of infections.

“When she eventually took the dirty bedding off my bed, she realised that she had also grabbed my white vest. She turned and threw it at me, hitting my face. When I confronted her, she then said, ‘that was a joke. I was joking with you.’ There was a colleague who was standing there who saw everything as she was giving me medication. She even apologised on behalf of her colleague.”

These complaints, said the woman, were brought to the attention of a senior sister the next day, who allegedly apologised and went on to reprimand staff, saying “one of the patients was a journalist; they should treat patients right because they do not know who they are and could possibly be ministers and they had no idea who was paying their medical aid”.

The patient said she wanted the healthcare workers to be brought to book.

“I can only hope that the families of the other patients I was with in the ward stand up for their loved ones too because the stay at the hospital was like a scene out of a horror movie,” she said.

TimesLIVE Premium has seen correspondence between the hospital and the woman.

In one mail, Tendai Makwabarara, manager at Clinix Tshepo-Themba Private Hospital, said they are not at liberty to discuss treatment rendered to any of their patients.

“We confirm that the health, safety and wellbeing of our patients is of utmost importance to us. Our staff are aware of this. For this reason, we have investigated the incident to which your email relates and have also been in contact with some of the patients who were in the ward in question during the specified dates, including the complainant.”

TimesLIVE Premium also sent questions to Makwabarara.

She replied: “We will be engaging the patient referenced in your email with regard to the outcomes of the investigation to address any concerns and interventions undertaken thus far.”

The SA Nursing Council listed acts such as failure to give the required treatment to a patient, neglecting to or delay in obtaining medical assistance for a patient and failure to prevent injury or accident to a patient, assaulting of a patient — whether physical, sexual or verbal or leaving a patient unattended as professional misconduct.

The council stated on its website that a nursing or midwifery practitioner who is found guilty in accordance with the Nursing Act, 2005, is liable to one or more of the following penalties: