Elizabeth Isaacs, my domestic worker, suffered a heart attack on Saturday last week when I was out of town at a conference. No state ambulance was available so Netcare, a private ambulance company, was called. They arrived promptly, and administered treatment before taking her to Johannesburg Hospital.
The next morning my husband and two children bought flowers and off they went to cheer up “Mamma Lizzie”. Their experience was a horrifying reflection on service delivery at this government hospital.
My husband had no idea where to go after parking his vehicle. There is no signage to help visitors. He asked an attendant where he should go to find someone who had been admitted with a cardiac problem and was told to “take the orange lift to the fifth floor”. He did so, only to be told that he was not in the cardiac department, he should “go to the green section”.
Having eventually found the green section, he was told that Elizabeth was not there and he should go to reception — again difficult to find. At reception the staff were arguing among themselves and ignoring the queues of waiting people. When my husband tried to speak to someone at a kiosk in the reception hall, the man turned his back.
Service delivery at public hospitals should mean following what the government preaches — Batho Pele principles — which are about people coming first, respect for fellow human beings and service, if not with a smile, at least with a modicum of concern. None of this is evident at the Johannesburg Hospital. There was not the slightest attempt by any of the people he spoke to to be helpful, much less to show any sympathy for his anxiety about the fate of a patient.
When my husband eventually managed to get someone’s attention he was informed that there was no record of Elizabeth having been admitted. Pressed to be more helpful, a woman referred him to two different wards, giving him no directions as to how to find them. The first ward he tried had no record of her. At the second he was told that she had been admitted. The doctor in charge said she would speak to him, but then kept him waiting while she carried on filling in forms; finally informing him that Elizabeth had died at 7.20am.
The experience was appalling. My husband had walked up and down the soulless corridors of the (filthy) hospital for almost an hour. The treatment at enquiries, the indifference, the lack of courtesy, the callous contempt for the stress and anxiety of visitors anxious about the welfare of their family members or friends, and the absence of dedication to public service was chilling and made him smoulder with quiet rage.
On my return from a work assignment I was shocked to hear of Elizabeth’s death and of my family’s experience. I had to see for myself. I offered to go with Elizabeth’s family to identify the body at the mortuary a few days later and to find the doctor who had attended to her to try to ascertain what had happened. We waited for more than half an hour at the ward before I spotted a woman I thought might be the doctor. “Go down to the mortuary,” she said … and was gone, racing down the stairs.
Feeling utterly lost, we went down to the mortuary to identify the body. We knocked on a door that said “Enquiries”. When no one responded, I banged on the door and shouted. Still no answer. I opened the door. There was no one at “Enquiries”. We kept walking until eventually we encountered a man, full of smiles, asking “you want to identify a body?”.
In the end, I spent more than three hours at the hospital just trying to get some answers. Certainly there were none at the mortuary, just a register of death certificates that proved that there was no mistake — Elizabeth was dead. I question whether she received proper treatment, if any, at the Johannesburg Hospital.
I expected to be treated with some courtesy at the hospital. I expected some service at the mortuary. I expected some answers about Elizabeth’s death. I got none.