Widow describes hospital ordeal

Health minister approached after husband’s ‘shocking treatment by nurses’

A KIRKWOOD widow furious about the shocking treatment her husband allegedly received from nurses at the Livingstone and Sundays River Valley hospitals before his death has written to Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi, begging him to take action.

Jacqueline George’s husband, Bernard, 67 – who was admitted to the Port Elizabeth hospital twice, the first time in January – died at home last month.

In her letter to Motsoaledi, George, 63, said: “The nurses would talk in the passage, fighting among each other to not be the one to look after my husband.

“They said they were not being paid enough to look after [him].”

In an interview yesterday, she said: “That thing they keep on saying about a better life for all, that is just a lie ... I have heard and seen too much at that hospital.

“Enough is enough. My husband is dead now but people must still suffer every day in that hospital.”

Bernard suffered a slight stroke at home in Kirkwood on Sunday January 10.

He was taken to the Sundays River Valley Hospital and referred to Livingstone on the same day.

“I saw him on the Tuesday and walked with him to the bathroom,” George said.

“On the Wednesday morning, the doctor phoned to say he had had a second stroke and was in a coma.”

An upset George said her husband had been found on the floor after suffering the stroke.

“The patients next to him said they called and called after he fell out of the bed, but the nurses just ignored them,” she said.

“We begged them to put him in a decent cot bed. They just refused.”

George said that one day she arrived at the hospital and noticed her husband’s pillow was missing.

“I went to find the nurses. They were sitting around a table. On the table there was a massive cake.

“They told me they were not the laundry and I must leave them alone because they were eating,” she alleged.

She said the nurses had also refused to give her husband adult nappies, saying the hospital had run out.

“We had to go and buy nappies for him all the time,” she said.

“I want to say . . . we could not have asked for better doctors to look after him. He was in excellent hands all along.

“My complaint is about the nurses in Ward 5A. They treated him like rubbish,” she alleged.

“I offered my assistance for free on a 24/7 basis, which was rebuffed with contempt.

“The first time I visited him, I found him lying in his own faeces and urine.

“The patients next to him said he had been like that for more than six hours. They said they had asked the nurses to clean him.

“The level of neglect that my late husband suffered was deeply distressing to me and my family, but it does not stop there.”

George said her husband was discharged from Livingstone on February 17 and sent back to Sundays River Valley Hospital.

Two days later, he was referred back to Livingstone because the incision for his feeding tube had become infected.

“The nurses made no secret that they were unhappy to see him back,” she said.

“One of them said: ‘Mr George is back. Who is going to care for him? I will not because I do not get paid for that.’”

Bernard was discharged from Livingstone on March 4 and sent back to Sundays River Valley Hospital.

He was sent home the same day and then readmitted later that day after he pulled the feeding tube in his stomach out.

He was discharged on March 6 and died at home at noon that day.

“When we brought him there [Sundays River Valley Hospital], the nurses asked us if [Livingstone] had sent food for him too as they didn’t have any,” George said.

“While he was there [on March 5], he fell out of his bed and had to get five stitches.

“The patients in the [next beds] said the stitches had been put in without even a little anaesthetic.

“This is a man who could no longer speak. Can you imagine the agony he must have gone through?”

Livingstone Hospital chief executive Thulane Madonsela said they had allowed George to stay with her husband all day as he was critically ill.

“She never indicated she wanted to stay in the ward for 24 hours.

“We would have allowed her [to do so],” he said.

He disputed George’s claim that the hospital had not had any adult nappies.

“It is against the principles of Batho Pele [people first] to despise a patient,” he said.

“We encourage people to come forward and report these incidents immediately, with the name of the official or positive identification, so the necessary steps can be taken against that staff member.”

In her letter to Motsoaledi, George said people expected better from his department.

“Incompetence, negligence and non-commitment are the cancer destroying your efforts to render an acceptable service to the public.

“People expect better from a department overseen by you, since you are supposedly one of the very few bright sparks within [President Jacob] Zuma’s cabinet,” she wrote.

Eastern Cape Department of Health spokesman Siyanda Manana did not respond to a request for comment about the allegations related to the Sundays River Valley Hospital in Kirkwood.