Citing continuous taunting, bullying and discrimination by nursing staff, a group of Walmer Township women have described in painfully emotional detail how they are forced to put their health at risk as they struggle to access anti-retroviral drugs at the Gqebera Clinic.
The women have started their own support group led by Nomasomi Mbambo, 35, and though they have about 20 members, the numbers are growing by the day.
To protect some patients who fear reprisals, Mbambo said she documented the complaints and experiences of people who suffered at the hands of the clinic’s nurses.
However, provincial health authorities have insisted that any conduct that contravenes the rights of patients is unacceptable and that action will be taken.
They have also asked affected patients to report such incidents to a call centre.
“The clinic would close its doors at about 9am in the morning. If you are not in line by 5am you might not get in,” Mbambo said.
“If you have missed appointments, you will be punished.
“Yesterday there was an old man who was in line with us since 5am.
“The nurse looked at his file and said he was one day late.
“She made him sit there until everybody else had been helped. ‘I am punishing you for being late,’ she said. ‘We are going to see you last after everybody has gone home already’.”
Mbambo said patients who just needed to collect blood results were placed at high risk by having to wait for hours in line with TB patients and other ill people.
“In this township, there are a huge amount of people who are defaulting on their medication because of what is going on at that clinic.
“We have filled the complaint boxes with notes but they do nothing.
“We are hoping now that people are looking for votes, someone will help us.”
Mbambo said because there was only one doctor, the doctor attended to the sick patients and not those who were on anti-retrovirals
“They refuse to give you more than a month’s supply of ARVs. We have to go every month.
“Everybody knows that you are there to collect your ARVs because the chronic patients are given these brown paper files to carry with them.
“When you can’t face them at that clinic, you just share medication with your friends.
“There is no privacy there. A woman who was defaulting on her medication collapsed at home and was pushed to the clinic in a wheelbarrow.
“Right there in front of everybody the nurse told her that she did this to herself.
“She was shouting at her and mocking her.
“When we complain we are told: ‘We can treat you any way we want’.
“If you try to talk about the side effects of medicine, they mock you. ‘This is a dispensary,’ they would shout at us. ‘It is not a pharmacy’.
“They refuse to replace your medicine even if it makes you sick. They just tell you there is nothing that they can do.
“We are swapping our pills to help ourselves now.”
Mbambo said one support group member had been taking folic acid to help prevent liver damage from long-term ARV use.
“She came from Johannesburg and when she asked for it [folic acid] here, they mocked her calling her the ‘sister in charge’.
“I went to the clinic for a sore throat and the one nurse just wrote down my symptoms,” Mbambo said.
“He didn’t examine me or anything. He just sent me to the dispensary for pills.
“That clinic cost millions [of rands] to build and it now leaks like a shack.
“The phone never works. If we need an ambulance, we are sent to the councillor’s office to go phone.
“Every day there are more than a hundred people in the line and they are all angry.
“I don’t now why we are being treated like this. They mustn’t blame us for defaulting on our medicine. It is better than facing them.”
The Treatment Action Campaign’s Thembisile Nogampula said he was deeply shocked to hear these accounts.
“We will do something – it is completely unacceptable.
“I am shocked to hear that news. The department of health is failing people.”
Eastern Cape health department spokesperson Lwandile Sicwetsha said there should be a doctor available to all the patients.
“The department expects nurses to treat patients at our facilities with dignity and respect they are accorded by the Patients’ Rights Charter.
“Any conduct that contravenes the rights of the patients is unacceptable and should be reported to the department call centre line 0800 032364,” Sicwetsha said.
“The department will investigate and take appropriate action against officials found contravening the rights of the patients.”
He said three months’ supply of ARV medication was only given to patients who adhered to their treatment.
Those who only received one month’s supply were patients who defaulted and must be monitored.
Sicwetsha said patients could also access chronic medication at external points such as Dischem, Clicks, Shoprite and the Post Office. There was no fee to collect ARVs from other service providers.