Uncaring staff and allegations of racism at health centres are some of the issues that the Public Protector has been urged to probe.
|||Cape Town - Uncaring staff attitudes, medicine stock-outs, long queues and allegations of racism at health centres in the province are some of the issues that Public Protector Thuli Madonsela has been urged to probe.
During public hearings on poverty and health matters in Paarl on Tuesday, Madonsela was told of patient struggles in the Drakenstein area, with some alleging that they were badly treated by health workers based on their race. Others urged her to intervene to expedite their social grants payouts and processing of pensions.
Madonsela, who earlier visited Polar Park Clinic in Paarl East and Paarl Hospital, raised concerns about bad staff attitudes, saying that both health workers and patients felt that they were “victims” of attitude problems.
Madonsela is holding public hearings in each province, focusing on the maladministration threatening to undermine Millennium Development Goals. These include eradication of extreme poverty, combating HIV/Aids and reducing child and maternal mortality.
Mbekweni resident Nomathemba Nkewu complained to Madonsela, pictured, that a friend - a cancer patient - died last month after doctors at Paarl Hospital refused to admit her.
She also complained about staff at Polar Park Clinic because of the “uncaring manner” in which they had treated her son, who had TB. She said, despite knowing that her son had defaulted on medication, the clinic failed to inform the family, putting everyone in the household at risk of contracting TB.
Another resident, Nolukhanyo Philano, said despite queuing at Polar Park Clinic from early in the morning, there were people who always “jumped the queue” and got priority treatment from nurses.
“There’s no priority given to small children and the clinic has no appointment system,” she said.
Henry van Wyk, one of the Khoisan chiefs in the province, said despite health and social problems such as drug abuse and safety issues in poorer areas of the province, “budgets were shifted around” to more affluent areas where the need wasn’t so great.
Madonsela said while many of the allegations still needed to be tested and were subject to investigation, she was concerned about “attitude matters”, saying provinces and municipalities needed to address the issue.
sipokazi.fokazi@inl.co.za
Cape Argus