AN EASTERN Cape woman feels general hospitals breed uncaring doctors who are not afraid to watch their patients die in their hands.
This comes after the father of her child, Siyabulela Nojiwa (42), who had been involved in a tragic accident on 23 December 2023, was treated poorly at the Umtata General Hospital.
According to Snethemba Tikaba (41), Siyabulele's baby mama, after the accident, he was rushed to the said hospital but later discharged as it was alleged that doctors saw nothing wrong with him.
When he got home, Siyabulela struggled immensely with pain and sleepless nights.
They hired a care to have him return to the hospital.
It's believed that he only stayed for eight days before he was discharged again on bed rest despite his condition.
“He cries daily about chest pains. He is struggling to breath and the only thing he wanted was for the hospital to examine and make sure he is fine, but they never did that,” Snethemba detailed.
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To this day, Snethemba said Siyabulele spends most of his time on his bed, unable to walk due to pain, struggles to bathe himself and uses his right hand to feed himself because his left one doesn’t work.
For Snethemba, witnessing the father of her child go through such pain is depressing, but what pains her is the lack of care and nature from the doctors, whose key role is to put the lives of the patients first.
“We don’t have concrete evidence that he will heal in time. That doesn’t sit well with me. I don't trust the hospital and that they did the right thing to ensure he will be fine. They failed him not once but twice," she said.
"Even the second time at home, he was not treated well. He doesn’t have pills and he is just sitting here in pain. We are let to go to the pharmacy and look for painkillers. Should he not make it out of this, the hospital would have failed him.”
General hospitals have received bad reviews, and Snethemba feels they feel like a death sentence to patients.
Despite attempts to transfer Siyabulele to a hospital in Gauteng, attempts were met with failure.
Siyabulele's sister, Monica Ngema (41), said that the hospital refused to transfer him, claiming that if something happened to him, the blame would be on the hospital.
The main concern is that if the hospital cannot transfer Siyabulele, why can't they do right by him and attend to his pains.
Eastern Cape Department of Health spokesman Sizwe Kupelo noted the enquiry posed to him by Daily Sun.
He said they were not at liberty to comment on patients' medical details and advised that the patient must lodge a formal complaint with the hospital's CEO.
Furthermore, in instances where a patient was unfairly treated at a public hospital, Kupelo said they must immediately lodge a formal complaint with the hospital CEO or call 0800032364
