The time is 7pm, on the 16th March 2011, four ladies rush into a hospital - one pregnant, feeling pains on her side. One remains behind to fill out the paperwork as the rest rush towards the maternity ward. This almost sounds like one of those happy tales that end with ‘it’s a boy’...but sadly, it isn’t so.
We get to the nurses in the maternity ward who tell her to change into some atrocious I-wouldn’t-be-caught-dead-in gown, and pick a bed, and they tell us that we can leave. Naturally dumbfounded, we just stand there and blankly stare at them. The nurses reiterate that we should leave, and that she is not leaving the hospital until she has had her baby. Pause....no tests, no asking her about the pains she is feeling...absolutely nothing?? They turn their attention back to each other, and continue with their conversation, as if we just wasted thier valuable chatting time. We then mention, seeing as they failed to ask, that she is eight months pregnant, so her leaving after she’s had her baby might be a bit of a stretch of hospital time. Only then does one of the nurses stand up to attend to her, whisking her off to some private room. Upon their return, the nurses send us to the emergency/casualty room to see the doctor! Right! So off we go....searching for this emergency room, seeing as all they did was point towards the door, offering no further assistance or direction.
Arriving at the emergency room, my eye catches a sight that causes my heart to sink – that of a mother carrying her 11 year old son on her back as they are sent from pillar to post in hospital! For a split second I worry about the shortage of resources, thinking that the hospital doesn’t have money for wheelchairs, but then wait, that’s not right...considering the big plasma Samsung televisions mounted on the walls...money certainly cannot be an issue here. As it turns out, wheelchairs they did have, but were seemingly only offered to ‘certain’ patients. When one of the nurses is questioned on this, all she did was look at us, turn around, and flatly ignore us – at that moment, Florence Nightingale must have turned in her grave.
One hour passes...we wait. Two hours pass...we wait. Three hours pass...we wait..and still, no doctor. Patients are growing in number, with our ‘patient’ grimacing in immense pain, and nobody to attend to her. The nurses aren’t of any help either...all they do is tell us to wait for the doctor, along with a lot of other patients. They pick a few and tell them that they will be admitted and spend the night...as for the rest, well, wait! After pacing, twiddling thumbs, sympathising, empathising and even starting conversations with other patients, we call it quits and decide to leave. This decision is spurred on further by another patient speaking from previous experience at the hospital, who nonchalantly says ‘trust me, at this hospital you sit until morning, when the morning doctors arrive’. Looking around, and judging from the casual attitude and behaviour of the nurses, this elusive doctor was nowhere near making his much anticipated appearance. Handing back the file to the nurses (who don’t even bat an eyelid about us leaving), I overhear one of them ask another ‘did the doctor say he’d be back?’. Pause-----> so this was common practise? Pause-----> there was a possibility that all those people would sit there until tomorrow morning, writhing in pain, waiting for a man who took an oath to do no harm? I then recall what one of the nurses in the maternity ward said, ‘you must come early, because the doctors get angry if we call them at night for something that isn’t serious, or an emergency’. Pause-----> the doctors get angry?? Really?? They get angry when called to do their jobs?? Really?? This doctor took an oath, but is as easy to find as Houdini! This doctor took an oath to do no harm....well, I guess he’s done no harm to all these patients waiting for him, afterall, he was nowhere near the hospital.
As for me, I’d rather bleed to death than be taken to Matikwana Hospital.
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