The five nurses that were suspended on Monday at the Steve Biko Academic Hospital for alleged gross negligence were seen in a video ignoring a distressed patient (28), who later died.
The Gauteng Department of Health announced on Wednesday that the five who were believed to be on duty, were put on precautionary suspension.
This is after a video that was shot by a member of the public who had been at the hospital on February 25, showing the nurses going about their private business while a patient believed to have an acute chronic illness was clearly in distress.
The video was not shared with The Star, but the paper can reliably reveal that it shows the patient sitting on the floor while waiting for the doctor to attend to him, calling out in distress and a member of the public shouting for help from the nurses.
However, the nurses, who had disappeared into another room next to the ward where the patient was kept, took time to reappear to help the patient.
Two of them, one allegedly on her phone, appeared to be in casual mode as they started attending to the patient who later died.
Speaking to The Star yesterday, department spokesperson Motalatale Modiba, confirmed that the deceased had already been buried as he had died last week.
Modiba said the five nurses were only suspended on Monday after hospital officials gave them time to explain themselves.
He said the suspensions were to allow hospital officials to conduct an investigation into the incident.
“This emanates from an incident at the hospital involving a 28-year-old male which was captured on video by a member of the public at the Emergency Unit on Sunday, 25 February 2024. The employees have since been suspended to allow for further investigation into the incident… sadly the patient died while in hospital,” Modiba said.
He added that the incident took place at the time when the hospital was “strengthening interventions to improve patients’ experience of care”.
“Those measures include the launch of the Gauteng Department of Health’s ‘I Serve with A Smile’ campaign which is a change management programme aimed at improving staff attitude and quality of services.
“In addition, the hospital management has been conducting frequent walk-abouts across various departments within the hospital to assess the level of service delivery and to interact with patients. In a bid to promote harmony at the workplace, the facility management is also strengthening the working relations with organised labour within the facility.”
He added that counselling services had also been offered to the family.
“The facility management continues to engage the affected family to enable the redress process to unfold,” Modiba said.
It’s not the first time nurses at the hospital have been in hot water.
In 2021, it was reported that 67-year-old Johan Van Zyl, a former nurse, suspected he was about to have a heart attack. He went to the hospital, but was ignored by the nurses for four days until he actually had a severe heart attack.
The Star