Epileptic woman has to sleep on concrete floor at hospital

A mother from KwaNobuhle in Kariega says her sickly daughter has been sleeping on a thin blanket on the cold cement floor in the hallways of Uitenhage Provincial Hospital (UPH) for about a week. She is among dozens of patients lying on the hospital’s floor or on chairs due to a lack of bed space.

The woman, who asked not to be named, told GroundUp that they rushed her adult daughter to the hospital after she had an epileptic seizure. The mother said she has been sleeping on a chair to stay with her daughter and her legs are now also swollen and painful. She says none of the nurses have given them any treatment since they arrived.

GroundUp’s reporter first visited the hospital in November and found dozens of patients lying on the floor because of a lack of bed space. Mkhululi Ndamase, spokesperson for the MEC for Health, had acknowledged that “there is pressure on the available beds”. This can be attributed to the increase in demand for care as the Kariega “informal settlements have mushroomed in recent years”.

We returned to the hospital about a month later and found that nothing had changed. Most patients we spoke to came from KwaLanga and KwaNobuhle townships.

One patient, with a drip in his arm, said the situation is causing tension between nurses and patients. “I was admitted but still served my tablets in the waiting area where I slept on the chair. I have been told that there are no beds. When you approach nurses, they shout at us saying: ‘We told you to wait at the waiting room.’”

He said this has resulted in many people being too nervous to ask for help from staff. “It’s better you keep quiet here,” he said.

Another patient complained that everyone in the waiting area was forced to use the men’s toilets because the women’s bathroom is out of order.

Health MEC spokesperson Ndamase said, “Unfortunately, there has been a huge demand for beds, including trauma cases.”

“The hospital cannot discharge people until they are ready. We admit new patients to wards when the outgoing patients are discharged,” said Ndamase.

He said that the female toilets had been fixed by Tuesday afternoon, but urged the public not to flush foreign objects as this leads to constant blockages.