Cape Town - A few days before his admission to hospital Graham Adams, 73, chairman of the Mitchells Plain Cricket Club, played cricket with other club veterans, and watched his grandchildren play.
The following Monday he got up early to go to work at Ozone Toners where he was a sales manager.
But the next day he wasn’t feeling well and his doctor diagnosed pneumonia. He was admitted to the new Mitchells Plain Hospital.
Eight days later he was dead.
His family is one of the two who have lodged grievances with the hospital management, saying it might be a beautiful hospital, but the service does not live up to the surroundings.
The provincial Health Department has acknowledged that the hospital, which has been open for some months but which was officially opened last week, was experiencing “challenges” as it went through its commissioning phase.
But the Adams family and that of Nazier Smith, 39, also from Mitchells Plain, allege that the hospital lacks appropriate medical infrastructure and staff, resulting in poor treatment of patients.
Adams, of Westridge, who served on the Western Province Cricket Board, was transferred to Groote Schuur Hospital where he died of septicaemia last month.
His family believe that his death could have been avoided had he been treated properly at Mitchells Plain. They said he was given neither oxygen nor fluids in the four days he was admitted. Nurses allegedly failed to feed him, claiming that feeding assistance was not indicated in his folder.
His daughter Andrea Croy said: “None of us expected his death at all. When he was admitted he we thought it was just a cold because he was a very healthy man.”
Smith, who is recovering in Groote Schuur, was admitted to hospital with a bowel obstruction at the beginning of this month. His family also blamed his deterioration on the treatment he received at Mitchells Plain Hospital.
His sister Nazley Abrahams accused medical staff of gambling with his life by performing three major surgeries in a space of a week without putting him in a high care unit. The last operation lasted about eight hours.
Mark van der Heever, spokesman for the provincial Health Department, confirmed that the hospital management was investigating the two complaints. He linked the problems to the fact it was a new facility employing staff from other hospitals where procedures could have been different.
Abrahams said a hospital should not operate while staff and procedures were still getting up to speed because this compromised service.
She said it was not appropriate to send someone who had just had an eight-hour operation back into a general ward.
Abrahams dismissed claims the new hospital was a world-class and state-of-the-art facility.
Apart from staff shortages, she said it lacked essentials such as phones, bedside bells and cellphone reception.
“When I wanted to speak to my brother’s doctor, nurses told us that they couldn’t call him because they had no access PINs for the phones… they could make calls only from the emergency unit. I couldn’t even use my own cellphone because there was no reception. How do you run a hospital like that?”
Medical staff, who spoke on condition of anonymity, confirmed an inadequate service, accusing the department of poor planning.
There were critical staff shortages. The 60-bed medical unit was overflowing, they said, and last Tuesday had 130 patients.
The unit, which catered for similar patient numbers to the old GF Jooste’s medical ward, high-care unit and carnation ward, had about half GF Jooste’s staff.
While GF Jooste’s unit served just over 100 patients with three specialists, four registrars and four interns, the new hospital had one specialist, two registrars and two interns.
One doctor described medical services at the new hospital as a disaster.
“People are dying. The overflow is so bad that adult patients are being treated in a paediatric ward, which is supposed to treat children, he said.
“How they expect fewer staff to do so much more is just beyond me.
“In theatre telephone lines are not connected… how can you expect medical teams to function in such as set-up? This is a brand new hospital in the middle of Cape Town, but the way it’s run it’s like we are in Matatiele in the Eastern Cape.”
The doctor accused the department of cutting back on the hospital because it wanted it run as a level one or district hospital.
Democratic Nurses Organisation of SA (Denosa) has raised concerns about the critical shortage of medics.
Provincial secretary Bongani Lose said: “Nurses and doctors will be blamed for problems that are not of their own making. The provincial government must act fast to resolve the critical staff shortages before it becomes a crisis.”
Van der Heever said the paediatric was being used for adults was a temporary measure until the full maternity service was commissioned.
“As the full obstetrics and gynaecology service will only be commissioned in 2014, the postnatal ward is being utilised to accommodate the overflow of medical patients until carnation ward is opened at Lentegeur Hospital.”
Van der Heever said the carnation ward beds, together with those in the emergency centre and Heideveld community heath centre, which was being revamped, would provide additional capacity once GF Jooste closed in March.
He acknowledged that the hospital had limited cellphone connectivity due to its design, but the major cellular networks had been asked to tender for additional reception boosters.
He denied an allegations that staff had no access PINs for the phones.
Cape Argus