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My unexpected and shocking visit to SA

MY UNEXPECTED and SHOCKING VISIT TO SOUTH AFRICA

I brought a few South African newspapers back home to Australia to read on my return. I found an article published in the HIGHVELDER dated 24/07/2015 interesting as it was about the same hospital I visited. My trip to South Africa was to visit my younger brother in hospital as he was very ill. Nobody prepared me for the site that would accost me on my arrival. Ermelo as I remember it used to be this quant, clean and beautiful little town about 25 years ago. I am sure many of your readers will remember it that way.

What I encountered on my visit to ERMELO PROVINCIAL HOSPITAL

  • After parking on a dusty unsurfaced area, we walked toward the ward areas which passed by the entrance of the ER, where used tampons were lying about and a child was playing with these filthy and bloodied tampons.
  • In the corridor leading to the men's wards we had to step over several bloodied pieces of gauze and plasters before arriving at the men's high care ward.
  • The staff were totally and utterly uninterested in doing even their basic tasks,they obviously had no idea what a nurses’ job description is and just lounged back in their chairs behind the nurses station having private conversations on their mobile phones and with each other whilst ignoring patients basic needs. There was a lot of shouting and loud conversations going on in the passage by hospital staff, I'm not sure how the sick ever got any rest. 
  • When I did manage to speak to a couple of these so called nurses, they showed no interest and did not seem educated or trained enough to fill a nurses position as they could not answer even basic questions regarding my brothers care and he had been there a week already when I arrived. On getting an opportunity to speak to the sister in charge she was just as bad if not worse and would not communicate with me.
  • I witnessed a doctor order a “soft diet” for a patient and the staff could not even deliver on such a simple request. The patient was hardly able to walk but the staff expected the patient to collect own stool sample with no help forthcoming. 
  • The hospital has posters on the walls that explain and talk about respect and dignity that the patients deserve. These seem to be sentiments that the staff don't grasp, in fact they go out of the way do the opposite. I even witnessed these so called nurses laughing at a patient battling to walk.
  • Staff just left empty used medical containers on the floor and used syringes with needles still attached on the food stand. Bloodied gauze, dirty clothing and cigarette butts amongst other things lying on the floors. 



  • I had been trying to keep my younger brothers section cleaner for a number of days which was not what I wanted to do at this stage. I was trying to spend a little quality time with my very sick dying brother. How ever every time we arrived for visiting the dish with the watery blackish  greenish vomit fluid was full, so I had to empty it and wash it or fetch a new one from the sluice room myself as the nursing staff would not get up to provide anything. I also had to clean vomit from the floor as no staff member would do it.
  • If that was not bad enough, on my arrival on another occasion the cleaner was busy collecting used stuff and instructed me to just empty the dish, well I just couldn't help myself and just said “ you just do it now, I have been doing your job for the past 4 days”. Not very nice I know, but well deserved as far as I am concerned.
  • The hospital lacked basic necessities such as cleanliness and order and good management. The dirt on the beds and drip stands could only be an accumulation of many years without cleaning. No clean bed linen or blankets, no access for patients to call for help, In fact there is no process or basic equipment or it seems no qualified staff to make a patient comfortable, let alone care for an unwell person.
  • This hospital and the behaviour of its staff is utterly disgusting and totally unacceptable and I can certainly say that conditions in Australian prisons and refugee facilities are a hundred percent better in comparison with this so called “hospital”.
  • I do not understand how any doctor anywhere in the world can tolerate this filth and appalling unprofessional behaviour. 
  • I have been in many countries and nurses and doctors usually work by strict ethics. I have never seen or experienced this type of abhorrent behaviour by medical staff anywhere else. 

In the past twenty years there has been no improvement in the health system but rather a very quick decline. 

Hopefully in the near future, hard working South African people's tax money will be better spent, perhaps on improving public health care facilities.

My heart goes out to those hard working South Africans that cannot afford health insurance.

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