Residents of Hammanskraal have raised complaints with Moretele Times regarding the continuing wrath of poor service meted out to the community by nurses and doctors.
The complaints include, staff attitude, poor hygiene and long waiting hours.
A resident who did not want to be identified said on 01 June 2017 he brought his Grandmother to the hospital who was not stable at 18:00 and three hours later she was still not attended to.
The nurses are accused of taking shifts to sleep while patients wait for medical attention at night.
“I risked our lives driving here at high speed to bring my unstable grandmother for medical attention, but here we are, three hours later, we are still waiting for a doctor to examine her.”
“It is now 21:00 and we only saw the first doctor who looked like he just came in for an evening shift.
“We are really pleading with the hospital management to improve the speed of service delivery. If it was during the weekend it would have been reasonable but it was during the week and it was not that busy but there is no one here to help us.”
Another resident who complained of bad attitude, Mr. Sello Mabuse, said after spending the whole day at the hospital, he was given bad treatment by the nurses who were rude to him.
“I arrived from work at 9:00 at the hospitals’ clinic which is in the same perimeters and an ambulance was called to pick me up but it showed up two hours later. They then took my blood for tests at 15:00 and I was told the results will only come back two hours later, but now it is after nine in the evening and I am still waiting for results.” Said Mr. Mabuse.
At the ward section of the hospital, patients complained of monkeys that roam the place and often grabbing their food from them. This was also sighted as a health hazard as monkeys could be carrying germs and disease.
On 28 of June 2017, Moretele Times sent questions to the CEO of the hospital, Ms. Damaria Magano, with a request for a response to the complaints based on the general poor service at the hospital.
On 30 June 2017, the CEO called a meeting with this journalists only to respond that she has sent the questions to the provincial government for a permission to respond and advised this journalist to lodge a complaint if there is one, instead of writing this story.
She further advised patients who might be having complaints to write their concerns and drop them in complaints boxes that are in every ward section of the hospital. Moretele.
Moretele Times wrote to the CEO to indicate that the story will be published by 08/07/2017 if a response is not received and at the time of publishing the CEO had not responded.
