Gavin du Venage
DOCTORS at Baragwanath Hospital have begun to arm themselves with chemical sprays to defend themselves against patients, following a number of attacks that has left at least one person dead.
Several weeks ago a doctor accidentally killed a haemophiliac patient when he tried to fend the man off. A senior doctor told the Mail & Guardian that the patient had bitten the attending doctor, who then struck the man in the face to ward him off. “The patient received a cut on his lip and then bled to death,” he said.
A representative for the hospital was unable to confirm the incident.
The doctor said patients, often forced to wait hours for medical attention because of staff shortages, blamed hospital personnel for what they saw as racist
“Patients think that if they have to wait to be attended to it is because white doctors don’t care about them. They don’t realise that staff work many hours overtime to provide adequate care,” he said.
It is this suspicion that leads to violence. Patients or even their families see staff as the obstacle to the improved medical care they have come to expect since the elections.
Added to the problem is the presence of much-maligned foreign doctors. The source, who is himself of East European origin, says patients regard the service they deliver as inferior.
Another doctor, who works at the Johannesburg Hospital, says attacks on staff are common: “Most doctors get attacked at some stage or another,” she says.
Attacks take place for a wide range of reasons. Alcohol or drugs often play a part, but she says it is not unusual for an elderly patient who wants to die to actively fight treatment.
“A doctor is ethically bound not to retaliate against a patient. But we can withdraw our services from a patient if there is a threat to our safety,” she says.
She concedes that long lines add to patient frustrations. “A patient who arrives at emergency for treatment will have to wait unless they are in a life- threatening condition. Sometimes they will wait an entire day and be told to come back tomorrow. Even then when they get to see the doctor they may be told to go home because their condition does not warrant treatment because they only have flu,” she says.