By Olebogeng Molale
Patients at the Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe a provincial hospital in the Northern Cape are up in arms after going three weeks without hot water with some patients resorting to begging for the basic service.
A patient who wanted to remain anonymous told Fray.news that his stay at the hospital over the past two week had been made difficult by the fact that he could only access hot water through the kitchen staff.
“This situation is sickening. How can we suffer like this just for hot water. we have been complaining to the nursers and they are telling us that there is nothing they can do, the only thing they can assist with is to ask the kitchen staff to help with us with hot water for bathing water, this is really uncalled for,” he said.
A mother of one of the patients said her son had not been able to bath properly for the past two week. “This is very bad especially when are still faced with this Covid 19 pandemic, if I had money I would have taken my son to a private hospital because the department of health is really failing us as the people of the Northern Cape it is really unacceptable not to have hot water for more than three weeks in a provincial hospital,” said the mother who also did not want to be named.
The Northern Cape department of health said it was aware of the problem and will “attended to it” very soon.
“We are aware of this problem and working around the clock to address it as soon as possible and we apologies to all the patients and our staff for the inconvenience this may have caused,” the department’s spokesperson Lulu Mxekezo told Fray.news.
However, The Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa provincial secretary Anthony Vassen said they have lost hope in the department.
“When patients need to bath the nurses are forced to boiling water with kettles for them which hampers their productivity because they must stop what they are doing to concertante on boiling water.”
He said the situation at the hospital was a shame not only on patients but to nurses and doctors.
“Our members are going through a lot we want the department of health to intervene as soon as possible, we have raised this issue with the management at the hospital because it has been happening for far too long now it is almost three weeks.”
Vassen said to commemorate the International Nurses Day on May 12 they will march to the Premiers office to raise their concerns.