The Democratic Alliance (DA) in North West has submitted written questions to the MEC for Department of Health, Madoda Sambatha, regarding the 94-year-old grandmother who has been sent packing by the staff of Potchefstroom Hospital in the midnight hours of 5 August 2019.
Pending the response from the MEC, the DA will in consultation with the family of Mrs Hodgskin consider approaching the South African Human Rights Commission.
The elderly Sylvia Hodgskin was transported to the Potchefstroom Hospital by ambulance from an old age home in Klerksdorp after staff struggled to wake her up and found that her blood pressure was excessively high. No beds were available at a Klerksdorp hospital.
Four hours after the patient’s arrival at the Potchefstroom casualty section, the doctor on duty diagnosed her with an infection.
Shortly before midnight, the hospital contacted her granddaughter, living in Johannesburg, stating that Mrs Hodgskin is discharged and that someone needs to collect her.
Upon the granddaughter’s enquiries regarding the late hour of discharge, she was informed that there is a shortage of beds and that discharging patients at this hour was common practice at this hospital.
Due to circumstances beyond the family’s control, they only managed to get to the hospital the next day, only to find the elderly Sylvia Hodgskin in a shocking state, half-naked under a sheet, shivering with cold. As the curtains were open, she was embarrassingly exposed to other patients and the public.
Her frail hand was bruised – seemingly from a drip not properly inserted and she had no food or drink since her arrival about 18 hours earlier.
Although a packet of clean nappies and clean pajamas was found next to the bed, it appears to have been too much for the hospital to even do the most basic to protect an elderly lady’s dignity.
During a meeting with the Potchefstroom Hospital, requested by the family and the DA, the hospital was unable to explain most of the circumstances, including to provide reasons for the extreme delay in care.
They further confirmed that no provision is made for food or even tea for casualty patients, even in extreme circumstances where patients may spend long periods of time in the Casualty unit.
It remains a concern that the Hospital Management raised concerns about photographs taken at the hospital by the family. However, as almost every aspect of the ill treatment of Mrs Hodgkin’s ill treatment at the hospital was disputed by the Hospital Management, the family would not have had any foot to stand on if they could not put forward the circumstances as evident on their photographs.
The family had to contact another doctor to drive to the hospital to take care of the patient before she was returned by ambulance to the old age home.
Treatment of this standard most certainly robbed this elderly woman of her dignity and therefore we believe that the Department of Health should address this hospital’s failures to prevent further dehumanising treatment of frail patients.