Hospital
14 July 2006
The North West Department of Health rigorously dismisses allegations of ill
treatment at Nic Bodenstein Hospital in the Southern District. As a department,
we are discontent with the article that appeared in the âDaily Sun newspaper
dated 12 July 2006â. The article purports that a patient who is said to be HIV
positive complained about harsh treatment she received from the nurses or staff
members of the hospital. The Department would like to report that a high-level
investigation into the matter had been undertaken. The investigations thus
revealed the accusations to be unfounded.
Just going straight to our findings, the investigations revealed the
following:
* That in fact the family of the patients is putting words into her
mouth
* That brother to the patient is the one who pressurised the patient to lay
claims of ill treatment
* That these allegations are merely meant to discredit and dent the image and
integrity of our employee whom we have established has bitter relations with
the family of the patients back at home
* They allege our employee (the nurse in question) spread ârumoursâ around the
hospital about a member of the family
* We feel the family resorted to dirty tricks of forcing the patient to lay
claims of ill treatment as a way of getting back at our employee
* The family is in fact closely related to our employee.
We further interviewed other nurses and patients who shared the room with
the patient in question and still none of them could attest to these
allegations. To further substantiate that the allegations are propelled by a
family dispute which is known in the township, our investigations revealed that
the family has a standing case against our employee in police hands.
The Department acknowledges that sometimes our nurses display mediocre
treatment to patients but in this matter the department can confidently say
patientâs constitutional rights to use public service were not breached in
anyway. We are fully behind a constitutional right of patients to use public
service facilities at any time without being prejudiced irrespective of
cultural background or origin.
âAs dictated by the Patients Rights Charter, the nurses within our hospital
are expected to master the spirit of Ubuntu and treat patients with dignity and
respect. We do not want to lose dignity that we have got after attaining
freedom in our country. The Department will however continue to encourage
recipients of our health service to voice out their grievances if they feel
that they are ill-treated,â said Nomonde Rasmeni.
Enquiries:
Isaac Mokaila
Tel: (018) 387 5813
Cell: 073 742 3906
Issued by: Department of Health, North West Provincial Government
14 July 2006
Source: North West Department Health (http://www.nwhealth.gov.za)
