By Karabo Rammutla
A shocking video taken from inside Tembisa Hospital has revealed the dire conditions patients are confronting.
On Thursday, a man who took his child to the hospital was appalled to find that in one ward, patients were lying on the floor, surrounded by dirty laundry and piles of rubbish.
So he filmed the scene.
In the video, a half-dressed elderly patient wrapped in a towel can be seen on the floor next to an unmade bed. Around him are used cups and dirty linen.
“Look how our human beings are being stored. I may call it stored because you cannot stay or sleep in such a place,” the man tells the camera as he pans the room.
At the other side of the room, a medic tends to a patient in bed.
After he was alerted to the video, Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi said the situation at Tembisa Hospital was being addressed.
“The MEC for health and wellness, Nomantu Nkomo-Ralehoko, visited the hospital to attend to this unacceptable situation. Everything was sorted,” he said. The MEC visited the facility on Friday.
The premier has called for heads to roll, asking Nkomo-Ralehoko “to take appropriate steps against the leadership of the hospital”.
In a statement, the Gauteng Department of Health said that on Thursday there was a period when Tembisa Hospital’s Accident and Emergency (Casualty) unit was receiving too many patients. In order to ease the pressure, the overflow area, which was seen in the video, was used to decongest the unit.
“The patients in the video are mental healthcare users who were moved back to Casualty as soon as beds were available in the wards. The hospital is currently in the process of completing an admission ward which will be used to decongest Casualty,” read the statement.
The department said the demand for service at Tembisa Hospital far exceeds its capacity.
“Tembisa Hospital is the only hospital in the north of Ekurhuleni and the facility does not turn away any patients, even when it’s full.”
The department added that it welcomes Lesufi’s announcement earlier in the week of the opening of a new hospital to replace Kempton Park Hospital.
Pictured above: Tembisa Hospital
Video source: Abramjee
