Eish! It's Because I'm South African

I saw this story on Facebook and it caught my attention because I went to school in Dundee in my youth and spent a fair amount of time in the 80’s in Dundee Hospital through various injuries attained while partying too hard. I remember the place as a clean, well run provincial institution that people were proud of in this small little Northern Natal Town. As I read this article, I found myself feeling increasingly saddened to call myself South African once again. The blatant disregard for the respect and dignity of Tax Payers in provincial hospitals today in South Africa is astounding. The seeds of these problems run very deep in this country, and I just don’t see us as a nation getting out of the slump we find ourselves in under the current Banana Republic Leadership style that the majority keeps voting for. My heart goes out to this family and I hope they can find a way of getting through their loss without too much disdain for the people that served them so badly.

Regards

Mark Oelofse

My father Mr. CFHP Lauwrens, aged 83 years was admitted to the Dundee Provincial Hospital during the afternoon of 2009/09/25. He had fallen at home and was admitted in the hospital for X-rays to be taken of his back, legs and hips to determine if he had broken or cracked any bones as he had great difficulty walking.

On 2009/09/26 my wife and I went to visit him during morning visiting hours 10H30 to 11H30. I asked my father how he was and he said we do not want to know what he had gone through at the hospital. He then said that the staff had emptied his urine bottle on two occasions into the washbasin in the ward he was in and placed it back on the chair next to his bed. He further said that during the previous night he had wet his bed and when he called the staff they said to him that they were going to place a pipe on his penis to make it easy to urinate. He says they then placed a pipe over his penis and secured / taped it to his penis and testicles with plaster. He said that he was very uncomfortable and it was sore, this did not help at all as he wetted his bed again because this pipe leaked. He said he was wet up to his shoulders. Later during the early hours of the morning he said he told the staff that it did not help as he was wet. They then proceeded to pull the pipe and plaster from his private parts. He said that he asked them to fetch a pair of scissors to snip it loose. He said that after it was cut loose they pulled the plaster off and that it was very sore. My father further said that when he asked them to fetch a pair of scissors he was left naked on the bed without the screening curtains drawn for privacy and also whilst there was another patient in the room with him. This patient is Mr. Charles Norval from Glencoe, Cellno – 0739549619 and he witnessed the urine bottle being emptied in the washbasin.

At 11H15 during visiting hours (2009/09/26) I asked my father if he had been given his medication and he said no. I noticed on his bed chart that no medication had been dispensed to him on that day. I then proceeded to the office and found a female nurse without a nametag – I then asked her if my father had been given his medication as it was already 11H30. She said no because they are understaffed. She then turned around took the medication trolley and started dispensing medication. On the way back to my father’s ward I met the ward sister NO Mcunu, whom I also informed about their service delivery that I was unsatisfied with. She was very apologetic and whilst talking to us her cell phone rang, she stuck her hand into her breast and answered the phone. She spoke on her phone for a while then ended the conversation and turned around and walked away. I followed her and said that I am disgusted with their level of service delivery and that I was going to report it to the hospital manager. She said to me that I cannot report them to the hospital manager, then walked to the wall in the passage and showed me a letter stuck on the wall indicating the steps to be followed when you are unsatisfied with any service delivery or if you have problems. She said I was to report to her and she will sort it out.

I then said to her that I do not work for her of the Provincial Government and that she cannot prescribe to me where and to whom I may or may not complain and that if I feel like it I will even report this matter to the newspaper. She then said that I can do as I please and even report it to the newspaper.

I then went back to my father’s room where sister Mcunu spoke to my father in Zulu, apologising and saying that she will speak to her staff. The nurse dispensing the medication then came (11H45), , took a small plastic cup containing tablets and gave it to my father. He placed the tablets into his mouth and then she wanted to hand him a big glass jug of water from his bedside cupboard to swallow it down with. I then said no he cannot drink out of the glass jug. I then took a plastic glass with which he then swallowed his pills. The nurse left the ward before my father had swallowed all his pills. What would have happened if he had choked after she had left his room?

On 2009/09/26 during visiting hours 18H30 to 19H30 I visited my father again. I was accompanied by my stepmother Mrs. JC Lauwrens and my wife. On arrival in my father’s ward we found that he had wetted his bed as his clothes and bedding was drenched in urine. I asked my father why his bed was wet and he then said to me that he had asked the staff to help him up so that he could use the urine bottle, he said that they then told him that he was to heavy to lift and that he must urinate in his bed so that the nightshift staff can clean him and change his bedding. They left according to my father without helping him to urinate. This fact was confirmed by another patient in the ward, Mr. Suliman Desai from Dannhauser Cellnr – 0827854047. Mr Desai who also told me what happened and that he had overheard the nurses saying this to my father. Mr. Desai also said to me that the staff had complained when my father rang the bell for help saying that he must not ring the bell so much as he was troublesome and they are now going off duty.

I then proceeded to sister Mcunu the ward mananger and voiced my dissatisfaction with her and requested her to phone my father’s doctor as I was going to take my father back home and wanted the doctor to discharge him on these conditions. She phoned Dr Mienie and I spoke to her telling her about the bad treatment and service delivery and that I wanted her to discharge my father as I was taking him home. She said that I could take him home. The staff and sister Mcunu then cleaned my father and changed his bedding and then wanted to give him a catheter to drain the urine. My father refused and said he wanted to go home and die there. We took my father home.

I feel deeply dissatisfied with the treatment and service delivery given to my father at the Dundee Provincial Hospital. It is shocking to hear that a urine bottle is emptied into a ward washbasin. Where has hygiene gone to? Probably out the window like a cloud of smoke! Is the procedure followed by the staff by securing a pipe to his private parts and taping it with plaster normal procedure? It must have been degrading and painful. He said that he could not sleep as it was painful and uncomfortable, worst of all – they wanted to pull it off without cutting it loose with scissors and still causing him pain when it was removed.

What training does staff receive? What empathy do they have for their patients? When have you heard that nursing staff of a hospital can say to a patient that he can urinate in the bed and that the next shifts staff will clean up the mess? Where have you heard that a hospital where you entrust your loved one can disregard the dispensing of medication and when you ask them at 11H30 in the morning if medication has been dispensed you are told no they are understaffed. Medication is given for a reason and should be taken as instructed by a doctor – not when hospital staff decides to dispense it at their own leisure.

Service delivery experienced at Dundee Hospital sucks and is shocking. An apology is unacceptable. My father is a frail elderly person not capable of helping himself. He was admitted on doctors orders, belongs to a medical aid scheme, which in return pay fees for certain services. Surely it is not too much to ask to treat patients in a professional and ethical manner as set out in a hospitals mission statement. Appropriate action should be taken to prevent patients from being treated in the manner my father experienced at Dundee Provincial Hospital.

During the period that my father was in the hospital I also noticed how dirty the hospital was. The tiles on the floor to the entrance and the floors in the passages were filthy. The bed my father was lying in had a sheet on that covered only three quarters of the mattress. When I asked sister Mcunu about this she said that the sheets were too short. Dundee Hospital is a public place under control off the Provincial Government. State patients as well as patients with medical aids are treated here. Being a government’s institution a high standard of service delivery is expected which was definitely lacking at Dundee Hospital.

CA Lauwrens (Son of Posselt Lauwrens)