Johannesburg - The last thing Origin Serumula remembers about his sickly mother is how scared she was of sleeping for yet another night on the floor at Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital.
The 24-year-old’s mother Elizabeth Serumula, 50, waited three days to get a bed at the over-crowded public hospital.
For those days she was forced to sleep on the floor in the admission ward at the hospital with a drip attached.
Then on Thursday a relative, who also works for the Saturday Star, Rabbie Serumula intervened and called the hospital’s spokesman Nkosiyethu Mazibuko and a bed was promised.
Whether she was given a bed or not is unclear, but Elizabeth died in the early hours of Thursday morning after her condition had deteriorated.
“She begged me not to leave her. She told me she could no longer bear sleeping on the floor,” said Origin recounting the grim experience of watching his mother’s life slip away.
Before he left the admission ward on Wednesday afternoon nurses reassured Origin that a bed had been arranged for his mother and that she would be attended to.
According to Origin, Elizabeth became ill last Saturday.
He described her condition as “on and off”, saying “she shivered most of the day asking for blankets but it was hot outside. I didn’t know what was wrong with her. I didn’t know what to do.”
Origin said his mother had been treated earlier this year by a doctor but otherwise seemed healthy.
But when she fell ill again they didn’t have money for a private doctor. Elizabeth decided to go to the local clinic instead. But she never made it.
She collapsed in her yard and was rushed to the hospital on Monday. Once she was there she was placed on a drip and seated on a wheelchair.
At night she and other patients were told to sleep on the floor using a thin blanket. No longer able to endure seeing his mother suffer, Origen said he had an argument with hospital staff begging for help.
But nurses told him there were no doctors available.
“For three days, nothing was done. It hurts me because that is a long time for a hospital not to attend to someone. To place a drip is not enough,” he fumed.
Elizabeth’s mother Miriam Serumula, 83, cannot believe the treatment her daughter received from the hospital.
“Attendance at Bara is dead. I found her (Elizabeth) sleeping on the cement. She was shivering. She couldn’t talk,” adding that her daughter had breathed heavily and complained of chest pains.
Elizabeth said her daughter’s spirit died as she contemplated sleeping on the floor for another night.
Elizabeth’s last request was to see her youngest daughter.
“I didn’t answer her. They had put an oxygen mask on her. That’s when I realised that things were not looking good. She was slipping away from us,” she said, adding that her daughter was still being treated on the floor. Her youngest daughter never did see her mother again.
A hospital employee confirmed that people were sleeping on the floor at Bara even though the R730 million Zola-Jabulani District Hospital was now open.
The hospital opened in May.
“It just doesn’t make sense. This has to end. Someone has to account for this,” the employee said.
The Department of Health and the hospital did not respond to questions at the time of going to print.
Saturday Star