Students and medical staff at the Chris Hani-Baragwanath Hospital say they feel unsafe — and that administrators need to do more to improve safety at the world’s biggest hospital.
On July 30, a student was raped at the hospital. She had been on her way to the blood bank at about 7pm when two men approached her and one of them raped her.
Alice Dube, a radiographer at Bara, says that the hospital is not safe at all. “The passages don’t have sufficient lighting and there are just not enough guards,” she said.
Dube also said she was worried that there was a shortage of security guards.
“If you want to walk to the maternity ward at night, for instance, you have to get someone from the department to walk you. That means two radiographers are out on one call.”
There are two groups of security companies that are responsible for security at the hospital.
“There are guards at the gate and there are other armed guards that patrol around the hospital,” said Dr Anna Sparaco, who works at the hospital.
The vehicle entrance to the hospital, which is a temporary entrance as a result of construction, is manned by three guards from KK Security Services and is within walking distance of the hospital’s administration block. The pedestrian entrance has two guards who search the bags of people entering, but not of those leaving the hospital.
KK Security Services is a private security company that deals only with access control at the hospital, while the security guards that patrol around the hospital are provided by the government.
About 300 members of the medical staff and students held a protest march on Friday to demand a safer working environment.
When I walked into the hospital and asked for directions to the Glen Thomas building, I was given directions, but to my surprise my bag was not searched. This begs the question of how often the guards get too distracted to search bags or follow procedure.
Anger
Shaun Adam, a trauma surgery intern, said that students were angry because a fellow student had been raped at her place of learning.
With about 2Â 000 patients checking in to the hospital every day, safety is a concern, especially among staff who work at night.
The hospital is so crowded that there are not enough seats in the casualty waiting rooms. The overpopulation of the hospital is another reason for the inability to control crime.
The construction at the hospital is aimed at improving the size of casualty waiting rooms and other departments that need extra space.
Gauteng provincial health minister Gwen Ramokgopa suggested that the staff wear their nametags at all times so as to help the guards “root out the enemies”.
“Baragwanath is the most important tool for South Africa’s medical profession and when something of this kind [the rape] happens we need to act as quickly as possible,” said Helen Laburn, dean at the University of the Witwatersrand’s Medical School, at a protest march at the hospital on Friday.
The hospital’s CEO, Dr Arthur Manning, promised the staff that there would be an improvement in security. “There will be sufficient lighting in areas that need lighting and the South African Police Service [SAPS] will patrol the premises with immediate effect.”
However, the SAPS say they cannot place patrols in the hospital on a full-time basis, but that they would be there to give assistance where needed.
“Chris Hani-Baragwanath cannot expect to leave everything to the police. We have to have a meeting with them and see their plan of action and then we can take it from there,” said the Diepkloof police’s station Commissioner, Senior Superintendent, Wiseman Mthembu.
“The most popular crimes around the hospital are cellphone and jewellery thefts where the victims are mostly targeted at night in dark passages in the hospital,” said Alice Dube.
Vehicles are searched when they enter and when they leave the premises and there are CCTV cameras at the gates.
Gauteng provincial police spokesperson Superintendent Thembi Nkhwashu told the Mail & Guardian Online that the victim came forward to give a statement last Thursday and laid a rape charge against one of the two men who accosted her on Monday.