Student nurses live in filthy conditions

NURSING students at Port Elizabeth's Provincial Hospital are living in complete squalor, with blocked toilets and sinks, collapsing ceilings and holes in the walls, coupled with enormous rats.

Students claim many of them have fallen ill because of the dirt at the dilapidated nursing home where they live.

But while the Eastern Cape Health Department acknowledges the decayed state of the building, which it says it does not have the money to fix at the moment, it has laid the blame for the filthy conditions at the feet of the students.

A health spokesman said students should take responsibility for their living quarters and clean up after themselves.

There are about 60 students living in the worst-affected wing of the residence at the hospital.

Some of the nurses are training at Lilitha College while the others train at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University. Students from Lilitha said they paid R300 a month to live at the home but the students from NMMU, who were not subsidised, paid R900. - Estelle Ellis