Heartbreak: Byron Chetty says his wife Sugandrie (above) died because of negligence at Durban’s Wentworth hospital. Photo: Supplied
Scores of Wentworth District Hospital patients who allege they have received poor service, and families who say their loved ones died because of negligence at the hands of medical staff there, have filed complaints with the office of the health ombud Taole Resetselemang Mokoena.
This comes after Durban activist Tracey Williams, founder of Wentworth Angels, took up the cudgels for people in the South Durban suburb and surrounds who have lost their relatives after going to the hospital for help.
Williams said she had filed more than 100 complaints with the health ombudsman on behalf of families since March 2023 when she started receiving an influx of complaints from residents.
In addition, she got 27 complaints in just seven days from 5 to 11 January 2025 and she was still receiving calls this week from people battling to get treatment.
Patients have been dying due to negligence and some have been told they could not have essential surgeries and medication because the hospital’s budget had been depleted, Williams alleged.
She added that hospital security guards were violating rights by triaging patients and allowing only some to enter the premises.
Williams told the Mail & Guardian this week she is seeking legal assistance to collate cases for possible court action against the KwaZulu-Natal health department.
Patients had emailed complaints to health MEC Nomagugu Simelane but had not received a response, she said.
“I’m asking everybody who has lost a loved one at Wentworth Hospital, if you know of the case and the negligence that was served upon your relative, to open a charge of negligence and sue the hospital,” Williams said.
“The government is only going to learn when we start putting things into place.
“These nurses and doctors who took an oath are not doing anything to help our people. We are tired of seeing body bags coming out of the hospital. We are tired of receiving calls to say that somebody’s loved one has passed away.
“I know once the government sees that our people are coming forward, I can guarantee you we will get better services, not just in Wentworth hospital but also in Cape Town and Johannesburg hospitals.”
The M&G interviewed nine of the complainants who have turned to Williams for help recently, including 25-year-old former administration clerk Kayla Nayager who struggled to get medical help for days after she had a stroke on 19 August 2023.
As a result of the stroke and delayed treatment Nayager is no longer able to work and has applied for a disability grant.
She said she had arrived at the hospital at around 6am but only got to see a doctor at 1pm.
“After that, they sent me outside because they said I needed to be transferred to King Edward Hospital to do a CT scan,” she said.
“When the night-shift doctors came on, they told me King Edward would not accept me because the day-shift doctor was supposed to do a blood test.
“So, they took my blood at around 5.30pm and I got the results at 2am on Tuesday morning,” she said.
Nayagar said she waited until 11pm for an ambulance to transfer her to King Edward.
“I got back to Wentworth with the CT scan at about 11am and the nurses told me to sit outside and wait because I needed to redo my vitals.
“I waited until three in the morning. I got very angry because I didn’t sleep, I didn’t eat, I hadn’t showered in, like, three straight days. They didn’t give me a bed.
“I sat outside the emergency area for three days, and it was raining, it was cold and yet, they were seeing people that came with a sprained shoulder or small injury,” she said.
(John McCann/M&G)
Nayagar’s CT scan had revealed a serious problem.
“According to the King Edward doctor, it was a very severe stroke. I could have died and the fact that they left me untreated for such a long time made the damage even worse.
“I don’t think anything’s going to change at that hospital,” she said.
Byron Chetty said he took his 45-year-old wife Sugandrie Cheryl Govender, who was having severe chest pain due to a suspected heart attack, to Wentworth at about 6pm on 5 January.
“Security said that we can’t enter. We must wait in line. They never checked her blood pressure. And she waited a good couple of hours with that pain in the chest.
It was after 11pm when staff took her inside for blood pressure and sugar tests before sending her outside and giving her a “yellow tablet”.
An hour and a half later staff took a blood test and left her waiting on a chair for another six hours before giving her paracetamol.
“She kept on walking to me outside and telling me, ‘It’s painful, I can’t make it,’” Chetty said. “They gave her another Panado and then they gave her a drip,” Chetty said, adding that he had to force his way through security guards into casualty to check on his wife sometime after 5am.
“There was a nurse there telling me that she’s having a fit but I could see this is not a fit … and then, when I carried her I noticed, like, she took her last breath.
“Then they rushed her into the room and the security said we must go out,” Chetty said. “I just peeped into the room to see her. They were pumping her chest. Then, 20 minutes later, they still never came and told me. I had to go and find out for myself that my wife is dead.”
Their daughter Nikita, who was also at the hospital that night, said staff later told the family Sugandrie had died of a heart attack.
“They didn’t know what’s wrong with her until after she passed but she was complaining about the pain in her chest, that it was unbearable, and nothing was given to her to help her. Neither was anything done to save my mum. They just didn’t care.
“We then witnessed others passing on the same way my mum did just because they simply don’t care … including the security. When we witnessed her falling, they stopped us from helping our mother,” she said.
Wentworth Hospital public relations officer Thandeka Nxumalo said the provincial health department would respond to the M&G’s questions. KwaZulu-Natal health spokesperson Ntokozo Maphisa said the department was aware of complaints.
“As mandated by the Constitution, the department remains committed to the provision of healthcare for all citizens, within its available resources, including at Wentworth Hospital,” Maphisa said.
“The department is aware of certain matters involving this particular facility that are currently being dealt with by the national health ombudsperson. We are currently unable to comment, as we do not want to be seen to be pre-empting the outcome of that process. We wish to allow it to continue unhindered.”
However, Maphisa did not respond to questions regarding the cost of litigation due to medical malpractice and negligence in recent years.
According to the latest statistics presented by the auditor general’s office to parliament’s standing committee on appropriation in September, the government wanted to see contingent liability of medico-legal claims across all provinces reduced by 80% to under R18 billion last year from the baseline of R70 billion in 2018. However, the total amount of claims on 31 March 2023 was approximately R75 billion.
The amounts paid out in claims were R1.45 billion, R926 million and R1.75 billion over the last three years.
These payments affected the budgets of public facilities and, in turn, had a detrimental effect on the ability of the sector to deliver healthcare services, the auditor general’s office told parliament.
The office of the health ombud had not responded to questions from the M&G at the time of publication. However, Williams said she was scheduled to meet with representatives from the office on 25 January.