OPINION - Several appalling and shocking incidents at state hospitals have given us insight into what goes on inside these institutions, all pointing to serious maladministration, unprofessional and unethical conduct, and the gross ill-treatment of patients who are at the mercy of medical staff trained and paid to take care of the sick and wounded.
There was a patient left unattended for five days on a stretcher at Addington Hospital, and broken lifts in the 16-storey hospital and a fire there forced patients to be evacuated. There was the shocking incident of a 76-year-old patient bound and chained like an animal to a steel bench at Mamelodi Hospital in Gauteng.
And then like a grotesque horror movie that leaves you squirming and retching: a 52-year-old patient is left to die with maggots crawling in his mouth. Hospital? Infamous RK Khan. It never fails to grab the headlines.
We have heard of patients treated like animals at an abattoir; negligent, indifferent and inexperienced medical staff bungling on the operation table, leaving the patient worse off than before, wrong limbs being cut off, surgical instruments left inside the patient’s body; and patients left to bleed to death by uncaring nurses. And what of all the other incidents of ill-treatment of patients that never leave the walls and corridors of the hospitals?
But the story of “maggots in the mouth” must rank as the worst.
RK Khan is a rotten hospital and those guilty of unethical behaviour and gross violation of the Hippocratic Oath should be dealt with. They should never be employed at hospitals. But that’s easier said than done at these hospitals, where you can never find a better boss than the state.
T Markandan Silverglen