Nurses under attack. A doctor beaten up in full view of patients. Security guards robbed at gunpoint and tied up.
These are some of the daily occurrences at KwaNobuhle’s Laetitia Bam Day Hospital, forcing the staff, who fear for their lives, to partially shut down the 24-hour trauma and obstetric units.
They are refusing to work after 4pm and on weekends until the department of health takes serious steps to beef up security.
Their only “protection” at present are unarmed security guards and panic buttons that are not linked to an armed security service.
Criminals have been running amok at the clinic, often barging inside to finish off fights started earlier.
This past weekend, security guards were held at gunpoint, tied up and robbed.
The robbers then tried to lock them in the guardhouse, saying that they were “going for the rest of the clinic”.
Fed-up with the crime and worried about their safety, community members gathered at the Eastern Cape department of health’s district offices on Wednesday, but said on Thursday that they had been fed a stream of lies and promises since 2004.
“They are treating us like pigs,” clinic committee chair Lakhe Kona said.
“Our lives mean nothing to them.”
He said they were furious when they tried on Wednesday to meet Jerald Baartman, the official in charge of clinic security at the health department’s district office in Port Elizabeth.
“They told us he was in a meeting but we found him hiding behind a big car in the parking lot,” he said.
Mxolisi Muleka, the Nehawu shop steward at the clinic, said staff had no choice but to close the clinic after hours and over weekends following the latest armed robbery.
As hospitals and clinics are gun-free zones, the security guards are not armed.Muleka said the trauma unit at the clinic was usually open 24 hours a day – but staff had decided to close it from 4pm.
“We have been complaining about security at this clinic for the past 10 years without results,” he said.
“We have no armed response and it is very dark around this clinic.
“We only have a boom gate. People are forcing their way in all the time.
“Many times a week, a fight that started in the community gets finished at the clinic.
“A child with a broken arm sought help here last month and the gang that attacked him came running in ‘to finish him off’.
“The other day, drunk thugs were unhappy about the way the doctor treated them. They then beat up the doctor.
“When the security guards came to help, they beat them up too.
“Now the security guards won’t help anymore. When there is a big fight, they run away.”
Muleka said that as a final resort the clinic would only be open until 4pm daily and the 24-hour trauma unit would close at night and over weekends.
“We will still help people with the primary healthcare needs,” he said.
Kona said staff were tired of all the false promises.
“We don’t have enough security guards and the gangs know this.”
Kona said the health department had increased the security contingent from three to five at night.
“We are very aware that the level of violent crime in this area is a community problem, but it affects our clinic very badly.
“We have really lost confidence that anybody is coming to help us. “The guards are not armed. “We were told that if there is trouble, there is a car with armed guards that will come, but we have never seen this car,” he said.
Kona said the nurses had eventually been issued with panic buttons which are not linked to any armed security.
They have proposed that security cameras be installed.
Treatment Action Campaign provincial chair Thembisile Nogampula said it had held meetings with all the parties involved since Monday.
“We are very disappointed with the response from the department [of health]. People are suffering,” he said.
Sipho Nyanga, chair of the ad hoc committee to deal with security issues in the area, said the biggest risk factor was that the clinic was surrounded by bush.
“It is in a bad place,” he said. There were also not enough security guards.
“The trauma unit and the obstetrics unit are open 24 hours a day and most of the people who work there are women.
“The people who are committing crimes at the clinic are small-time criminals taking advantage of all these factors.”
He said closing the clinic was the only way to apply pressure on the department.Health spokesperson Lwandile Sicwetsha said the clinic had been closed because the staff feared for their lives.
“Patients are referred to the Uitenhage Hospital until further notice.
“MEC Helen Sauls-August is concerned about these criminal incidents at our facilities.”
The department was in the process of procuring an alarm system and CCTV cameras.
“This will, however, require broader community participation to prevent these attacks.
“The department is working closely with community structures, community policing forums and law-enforcement agencies to protect the patients coming into our facilities.”
Earlier this year, provincial health spokesperson Sizwe Kupelo said R3.8m had been allocated to the clinic for, among other things, steel gates, burglar bars and the installation of CCTV cameras.