Clinic staff told Madonsela that they “worked like slaves” due to staff shortages, which often left them “physically and emotionally drained”.
|||Cape Town - Robert Burch, a pensioner with diabetes, joined the queue at the Brooklyn Community Health Centre at 5am on Wednesday hoping to be first in line when the clinic opened at 7am.
In fact he was number five, but he wasn’t worried because he had an 8am appointment to see a doctor.
“Everything went smoothly until I got to the pink room where nurses performed the routine tests,” he told Public Protector Thuli Madonsela during her visit at the clinic on Wednesday.
A nurse told him he wouldn’t be able to see a doctor until September.
“They told me to go the pharmacy instead and get my medication… this doesn’t make sense at all.”
Other patients had complaints for Madonsela, whose Western Cape tour is aimed at strengthening the government’s ability to deliver on the Millennium Development Goals that include eradicating extreme poverty and cutting child and maternal mortality.
Clinic staff told Madonsela that they “worked like slaves” due to staff shortages, which often left them “physically and emotionally drained”.
There were 10 nurses, two doctors, two pharmacists and three pharmacy assistants to serve more than 400 patients a day.
Despite the challenges, clinic staff prided themselves on never turning patients away.
Madonsela, who later held public hearings at the Civic Centre, told provincial Department of Health and the City of Cape Town staff that they should respond to the elderly in a way that upheld their dignity.
sipokazi.fokazi@inl.co.za
Cape Argus