They lie on tables or benches; they twist and turn in chairs; they sprawl on the floor, many with attached drip bags hanging on hooks. The bags are empty.
The scene resembles a battle field — the aftermath — strewn with the wounded, but these are Eastern Cape patients in state hospitals, waiting desperately for a bed, a doctor, or a nurse.
Some lie on the bare floor with no mattress or blanket.
A Dispatch reporter visited some of these waiting rooms and spent a night in one .
“A patient sleeps on a chair like this? No, we do not have rights here. It’s better if I go home and look after myself there. In a hospital, you may be a patient but you sleep on the bench until the ribs are painful. Where are the beds?”
These were the words of an Mthatha area villager, one of a dozen patients found sleeping on the benches and floors of Mthatha General Hospital on Friday night, February 14. Some patients were in their third day of waiting.
The Dispatch also saw patients in droves sleeping in waiting areas at Madzikane-Ka-Zulu hospital in KwaBhaca.
In a further human rights tragedy, patients seen at most of the 32 hospitals checked by the Dispatch, spoke of spending days in hospitals waiting for treatment, sometimes being rewarded with only the most simple and basic treatment.
After waiting two days at Holy Cross Hospital and only having her blood pressure taken and weight recorded, a woman, who recently had her cancerous left breast removed, said she had given up and abandoned the hospital.
The Dispatch spoke to her on her way out: “If this is all that happens after two days here, I am probably going to be here for the whole week,” she said angrily.
She had been transferred to Holy Cross by her clinic and had arrived with her transfer letter.
The woman, who refused to give her name for fear of victimisation, said she suffered from a painful arm following her cancer surgery.
“Since I arrived here, I have not seen the doctor. I spent the whole of yesterday waiting. Today, the only thing that was done was the recording of my blood pressure and weight,” she said.“I just cannot spend another night sleeping on a bench. I am in severe pain and I have not been given any painkillers since I arrived.”
She said the government should employ more doctors and nurses.
A nurse who wanted to remain anonymous, said they agreed with the patient for leaving. Sometimes nurses even told them to go home and return the next day.
She said: “It is pointless to keep them here waiting to see doctor, while the dispensary is closed. The reality is they will not be able to get their medication today.”
At Mthatha General Hospital, a patient who arrived earlier in the day with a broken arm, sits in a chair wrapped in a blue hospital blanket. He has a cast on his left arm, a drip inserted in his right arm, and his head is wrapped with a bandage. It has a blood stain above his left ear.
He moans, tosses and turns.
Next to him, Sanelise Mlondi of Chris Hani township outside Mthatha, lies on a bench. He has a cast on his left leg. The bag of his drip is still attached to the hooks but is empty. He is in agony.
“I am in pain. I asked for painkillers, but I was told the drip would help,” he says.
He arrived on a Thursday afternoon, and had a leg placed in a cast. The doctor ordered that he go to the waiting area and there he lay, in a terrible limbo.
Simamkele Dubo, from Bhongweni near Mthatha said he had arrived on a Friday afternoon.
He had stitches on his head. His drip was also empty.
The night continues. At midnight Dubo, who struggles to speak because he also has injuries in his mouth, asks the reporter: “Do you have food for me? I have not eaten since I arrived here this morning. I am hungry.”
The casualty room is just opposite the waiting area and in full sight of the staff. Not once did a nurse come to check any of the patients.
Once a doctor on call appeared and informed some patients whether their blood results were ready or not.
This was the third visit by the Dispatch to the waiting area.
During the first visit on the night of February 5, the waiting area and veranda were full of patients who told the Dispatch they were waiting for beds.
One patient said he had arrived two days earlier on February 3 and was still waiting for a bed. He was wrapped in his own blanket. The drip attached to his arm was empty.
“I have been told I should wait until there is a bed available for me. There is nothing I can do,” he said.
Inside the waiting area, Simphiwe Tshitshi of Pola Park, was among many patients crammed into the waiting area.
He told the Dispatch this was his seventh night on the floor.
“They take care of us. They refill our drips and give us food, but say there are no beds for us,” he said.
One patient lay with his empty blood transfusion bag still inserted in his arm.
In the three hours the Dispatch spent at the hospital, no nurse came to check on the patients and see if their drips had run dry.
A nurse who wanted to remain anonymous told the Dispatch: “Every night, that waiting area is full of patients who either wait for their blood results or wait to be allocated beds.”
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