An angry rant about conditions at the Helen Joseph public hospital by radio personality Tom London that went viral six months ago today saw formal reports into his claims being handed to health minister Aaron Motsoaledi.
London, whose real name is Thomas Holmes, made news headlines last September when he filmed himself in hospital, showed the conditions in the ward and spoke about the challenges before discharging himself.
In the clip, which starts with him declaring “Welcome to the Helen Joseph circus hospital”, he showed broken toilet infrastructure, complained of no toilet paper, callous staff, a dead patient left in the ward for several hours and an infestation of flies.
London was fortunate in the sense that his video attracted massive attention and his friends were able to crowdfund his transfer to a private hospital where he eventually received the surgery and treatment he needed.
Health ombudsman Professor Taole Mokoena on Wednesday said that his office noted the video and the complaints made, they had made contact with London and carried out an investigation into all the claims made.
“The health ombud is empowered by the Health Act and is independent. It’s our duty to investigate alleged infractions of norms and standards in the sector and to function in good faith without bias or prejudice,” Mokoena said.
Their methodology was to investigate each claim made in the video. Then they interviewed London before carrying out a physical inspection at the hospital. Soon after they started, they received a second request from Motsoaledi, who also asked them to investigate the viral footage.
“We spoke to hospital management and staff, we inspected the facilities and went over the whole hospital to assess the extent of the problems that Mr Holmes experienced. Our focus was mainly on infrastructure and resources.”
Going through the findings, Mokoena said seven claims had been investigated:
- Claim 1: London had arrived at hospital casualty on August 25 2024 with severe pneumonia. He lay on the floor, “in my own faeces”, for three days before he was admitted due to non-availability of beds. This claim was substantiated and was found to constitute a breach of health regulations.
- Claim 2: London described doctors having a disrespectful attitude towards patients, “treating them like cockroaches”. This claim was not substantiated, apart from one doctor admitting that she had examined London’s file without speaking to him, and gave the reason as not wanting to disturb a bedside tutorial happening at a nearby bed.
- Claim 3: Radiology staff failed to administer dye when London was sent for a CT scan, requiring him to have to go back and have another scan. This was not substantiated. Mokoena said the scan had been done in the routine manner, and only after those results were seen was it decided that another scan using contrast material was needed.
- Claim 4: London said during the weeks he was admitted, on one occasion he went 48 hours without a visit from a doctor. “This was not substantiated, we found that Mr Holmes was seen 23 times in the time he was admitted,” said Mokoena.
- Claim 5: Patients received poor clinical care. This was found to be unsubstantiated, and London stated that he does not believe the care he received was inadequate and praised the nursing staff.
- Claim 6: Hospital infrastructure was in a poor state. This claim was substantiated. Investigators encountered paint peeling off the walls and ceilings, broken basins and taps, non-functioning plug sockets and intermittent water supply, particularly above the seventh floor due to the pump system being weak.
- Claim 7: A corpse was left unattended for hours in the ward. This was found to be unsubstantiated. “The man was certified dead at 6.30am and the corpse was logged into the mortuary two-and-a-half hours later,” Mokoena said, explaining that hospital guidelines cautioned against corpses being taken to the mortuary in haste. This was because a body needed time to cool before it could be washed, draped and taken to the mortuary. “When you move too quickly you get cases where the corpse is not a corpse, it is a living body and suddenly the person wakes up and starts shouting.”
Mokoena said that additional problems had been uncovered by investigators. This included a general breakdown of authority, a dysfunctional human resources department, a lack of stability among permanently appointed senior personnel, a lack of good governance and the hospital had no policies or standard operation procedures in place.
There was a problem with support services — there was no inventory of hospital linen, soiled and dirty linen was left to pile up for days before being taken to an outside laundry, and nowhere was it recorded what sheets were where, resulting in patients going without linen.
The hospital was 30% under-staffed, many nurses had left to work elsewhere, resulting in a heavy workload for those on duty.
He said there was no clear separation of duties in finance and supply chain management and this meant wrong payments made to wrong suppliers “which is just a polite way of saying there’s possible corruption”.
The ombud made a number of recommendations as a result — some addressed to the Gauteng department of health and some to Helen Joseph Hospital. This included filling vacant posts, drawing up and following protocols, stabilising management and fixing infrastructure.
A second investigation into London’s video was carried out by the Office of Health Standards Compliance (OHSC) and mirrored much of what had already been found.
We found a building that is 58 years old with ailing infrastructure, decaying pipes and intermittent water supply.
— Dr Siphiwe Mndaweni, Office of Health Standards Compliance CEO
OHSC CEO Dr Siphiwe Mndaweni said they had carried out two inspections at the hospital — one in September and a follow-up in December.
“Our process was to follow the journey of Mr London, first tracing his steps and then looking at all the other areas in the hospital,” she said.
“We found a building that is 58 years old with ailing infrastructure, decaying pipes and intermittent water supply. There was inadequate to poor general management, lifts in critical service areas that are not functional and though two maintenance plans had been scheduled previously, they were never actioned,” Mndaweni said.
“This was all known by the management team that blamed it on an insufficient budget that they saw to be a district-level problem.”
She said they discovered a fly infestation that London spoke of and saw it as a huge health risk.
“The operations manager said they had asked environment to assess the matter but they were unable to fumigate because there were patients in the ward.”
A cleanliness inspection found that cleaning machines had not been serviced in over a year, there was litter all over the hospital grounds and waste bins were overflowing.
She said there were staff shortages in all departments, human resources was failing to keep proper records and leadership was unstable — with four different acting CEOs since 2019.
Both reports were handed over to Motsoaledi on Wednesday afternoon. He will now take them on to ensure the recommendations are all followed within the stipulated deadlines.
London said he was extremely happy with the findings.
“This is a massive step forward. We’ve had two independent bodies take an open look at the disrepair and agree that things are wrong. They recognise that there’s a need for change,” London told TimesLIVE Premium.
“This is more than Tom London. It’s about South Africans and South Africans in the health care system. Things will now get better. I’m very happy.”
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