The impact of growing surgery backlogs at the Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe (RMS) hospital in Kimberley is having a devastating impact on the quality of life of patients and their families. It has also shone the spotlight on poor patient management and unsafe conditions at the Northern Cape’s only tertiary facility.
Petro Louw, who has been awaiting a bilateral mastectomy since 2019 due to a condition known as gigantomastia, was sent home on Thursday after a nightmarish ordeal at the hospital.
After making it to number 12 on the waiting list, Petro was hopeful that she would get a new lease on life. Her condition has not only caused her immense pain but places her at risk of further infections. The mastectomy is also a pre-condition for another operation in relation to back and neck trouble that was concurrently diagnosed with the gigantomastia. Petro is ranked at number 300 on the neurosurgery waiting list.
According to Petro, she was told to be at the hospital on Friday morning for admission and pre-op blood tests. There was no bed available for her and, like many other patients, she had to sleep in the passages of the Surgical Observation Unit (SOC).
She lived in the passage from Friday night until Monday afternoon, when she was allocated a bed. In this time, she endured dirty bathroom facilities and giant cockroaches. She was also almost robbed of her belongings while asleep. People, who presented themselves as patients, stole some of the food she was allocated. Her husband came from Postmasburg so that he could lock her belongings away in the car and act as her bodyguard. He slept in the car.
After being instructed to ensure that she was nil to mouth from Tuesday 10 pm, she went without food and liquid until being told on Thursday morning that her surgery would have to be re-scheduled due to insufficient theatre staff.
Petro is devastated. She cannot bear the daily pain, itching and discomfort any longer. The thought of having to go through this whole ordeal again is also extremely distressing, as are the further financial costs and sacrifices that her family will have to go through to make sure that she can report back for surgery in Kimberley on 14 May.
Petro’s story is sadly not an isolated one. It is, however, an unacceptable one and demands many answers from the provincial health department.
I have submitted a formal complaint to the MEC and acting HOD of Health in addition to questions to the National Minister of Health. I want to know why, despite the enormous surgery backlog in the Northern Cape, additional theatre nurses have still not been appointed and only four of the nine theatres at RMS are utilised. I also want to know why, despite the department having paid a private agency to tackle surgery backlogs by way of a surgery marathon this week, targets were not met. We also need to understand why patients are booked when beds are not available, why there is such poor security in and around the hospital, and why the hospital is dirty and home to a plague of cockroaches?
Everyone deserves a chance at good health and wellbeing and no one deserves to be subjected to the dehumanising circumstances that Petro, and many others like her, have to experience at the RMS hospital.