Several patients virtually fled an East London hospital after the admission of eight people suffering from extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB), the Dispatch Online reported on Tuesday.
”We fear for our lives,” said one of the patients, who joined about 100 others at Fort Grey Hospital in opting to go home rather than continue their treatment.
The patients with deadly XDR-TB were brought in from Jose Pearson TB Hospital in Port Elizabeth.
”We have nothing against them, but we cannot share living quarters with them,” said a patient.
Another patient, Mandisa Ndandane, said: ”Our immune systems are already weak and we cannot survive a stronger strain. What made it worse is that, when the paramedics brought the patients in, they wore full-length protection suits, like they were going to space.”
The XDR-TB patients were put into one of three isolation wards set up at Fort Grey and two other hospitals last October. The other wards are in Jose Pearson hospital and Nelson Mandela Academic Hospital in Mthatha.
Patients told the Dispatch that a hospital management official had assured them that they would not share space or nurses with the XDR-TB patients.
But on Monday they said they felt no safer than they did on Friday when the XDR-TB patients arrived. ”This was just in response to our fears, and because the issue was getting media attention,” a patient said.
The Health Department said there was no need for the patients to worry. ”They need not panic because they are in capable hands of trained health professionals,” said spokesperson Sizwe Kupelo. — Sapa