Cape Town - A father from Manenberg says he is traumatised after waiting for help at the Heideveld hospital for three days.
Tyron Michaels, 25, says nurses only saw him on the fourth day, even though he was bleeding profusely and passed out numerous times while waiting.
Tyron says he first got sick last Monday while on his way to work in Wynberg.
“I had terrible chest pains, it felt like my lungs were on fire and then the blood just started flowing,” he says.
He was rushed to Victoria Hospital, where he was treated and then referred to Heideveld Hospital.
“On Tuesday at Heideveld, I opened a new file and sat down to wait. I was bleeding from my mouth the entire time and I was nervous and afraid."
“I lost consciousness a few times, and bled all over myself, and still I did not get help. I was sent home and told to come back the following day.”
He says this also happened on Wednesday, and on Thursday, he begged a nurse for help.
“She told me it’s just TB, but the test came back negative, and when I again that afternoon asked if someone could please help me, they had a security officer escort me out.”
He went back on Friday and says doctors did various tests including an ECG, but they could still not find anything wrong.
Following a Daily Voice query on Sunday, the Head of the Provincial Ministry of Health, Douglas Newman-Valentine, tried to help Tyron by arranging that he be taken up at Heideveld’s trauma ward.
However, when Tyron got there at 12pm, he was told he will have to wait seven hours as there were no doctors at the hospital.
“I could not do it. I could not sit there again,” he says.
Honey Morara, from the provincial health ministry, confirmed they were investigating the matter.
Tyron has meanwhile visited a private doctor: “The doctor gave me a referral letter for Groote Schuur Hospital and I will go there this week.”