Pretoria - Steve Biko Academic Hospital faces a probe by the state’s health standards watchdog over staff attitudes and the unexplained deaths of patients undergoing treatment there.
“We have requested a detailed report from management around the treatment of patients,” acting chief executive officer of the Office of Health Standards Compliance (OHSC) Bafana Msibi said following reports in the Pretoria News.
He said they had also asked for a meeting with chief executive officer Dr Ernest Kenoshi.
“Once we establish the circumstances around allegations of the abuse of a sick patient who later died, we will look into involving health professional bodies for intervention,” he said. “We will set up a team to investigate the incidents, and then based on what we find we will escalate the issue to the health ombudsman.”
If nurses were found to have been in the wrong, OHSC would involve the national nursing council, he said.
He spoke after reports in the Pretoria News about patients going into the hospital for treatment and dying under unexplained circumstances.
Tryphina Mkwe died a week after telling her family she had been shouted at and beaten up by nurses when she fell and soiled the floor.
“They told me I was lazy and not sick, and shouted at me, asking how I expected them to help me when I made such a mess,” she said in a recording heard by the Pretoria News.
Before she fell into a coma and died, her family had called in the police to record threats allegedly made against her.
The family of an Eersterus man, Jan Drywer, who died after being admitted with gangrene in his toe, said they did not get a proper explanation; neither did the family of Juanita Noah, who died in August 2014 aged 38.
“She was diagnosed with pneumonia and meningitis. She suddenly developed cardiac arrest and passed on,” provincial spokesman Steve Mabona said, information her family said they had not been given.
“They apologised for failing to keep her alive, and mentioned being short-staffed,” her cousin Dawid Noah claimed.
Steve Biko boasts sophisticated medical equipment including MRI and CT scanners and operatingtheatres. It has more than 800 beds.
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Pretoria News