Disappointed members of the Treatment Action Campaign said a meeting on Tuesday with department of health officials about the Laetitia Bam Day Hospital was a fruitless effort – as threats to discipline staff who did not return to work were not withdrawn.
After waiting hours to meet with officials, no real solutions were reached, they said.
Staff have refused, since Monday, to work at the day hospital in KwaNobuhle at night, because they fear for their lives.
The clinic has a trauma unit and a maternity unit that is normally open 24 hours a day, but both units remained closed on Tuesday.
This followed a series of violent attacks at the clinic, with security guards being tied up and robbed.
The Treatment Action Campaign’s Thembisile Nogampule said on Tuesday its office-bearers waited for hours to get a meeting with acting district manager Sindi Gede.
“When we arrived at her office, she said she was going out to Livingstone Hospital. We said we will wait.
“She said we must come back. We said we will just wait.
“We went to the boardroom. There was a meeting, but those people then left.
“We made ourselves some coffee and we waited for her to come back,” he said.
Nogampule said Gede eventually returned several hours later but the outcome of the meeting was not a success.
He said the department refused to discuss the ultimatums it had issued to staff to return to work or be disciplined.
Nogampule said the TAC was also told that the district office could do nothing about the absence of an alarm system or functioning panic buttons at the clinic as this was a job for the provincial department.
At present, the only security measures at are unarmed security guards and panic buttons that are not linked to an armed security service.
“The department officials will come to the clinic on Thursday to report back to the community,” Nogampule said. “We will be ready and out in full force on that day,” he said.
He said the clinic would remain closed at night.
Clinic staff are demanding that a functioning 24-hour security system with panic buttons be installed before they reopen the facility at night.
Patients are now referred to Uitenhage Provincial Hospital.
Nelson Mandela Bay municipal spokesperson Mthubanzi Mniki said the metro had taken note of a complaint by Laetitia Bam clinic committee chairperson Lakhe Kona that staff were not helped by officials at the metro police offices in KwaNobuhle.
“The office at KwaNobuhle is only a deployment office and not a walk-in or community service centre.
“The metro police staff are only reporting on and off duty at this office,” he said.
“Any complaints or reports should be done at the local SAPS, which is KwaNobuhle.
“Metro police are still continuing with visible patrols in the area but these might be affected by the need to respond to other complaints.”
Health spokesperson Lwandile Sicwetsha said he would have to wait for health officials to visit the clinic before he could comment.