Hospital ‘unhealthy’

THE management at the Grootfontein State hospital has come under fire from patients, as well as hospital staff, who blame an apparent lack of control by those in charge for deteriorating conditions at the health facility.

When The Namibian visited the hospital late last month, complaints about staff’s laid-back attitude in the Tuberculosis ward were voiced, in addition to claims of overcrowding, bad hygienic conditions, and poor treatment of patients.The newspaper, during a visit to the hospital on Friday, June 26, also witnessed first-hand the reported lack of supervision inside the Multi-Drug Resistant (MDR) TB Ward.Reporters were allowed to enter and interview a number of patients there without any interference or query from staff on duty.Questions resulting from the newspaper’s visit to both the hospital superintendent and the ministry of Health and Social Services have not received a response since being posed on June 30.A medical staff member spoken to during the newspaper’s visit, stressed the importance of isolating MDR-TB patients while carefully monitoring compliance with treatment.MDR-TB is a strain of the Tuberculosis disease that is resistant to a number of first-line anti-TB drugs, and is apparently especially threatening to immuno-suppressed patients (HIV infected patients, or patients on immunosuppressive drugs).While patients complained that the six-bed MDR-TB ward was technically overcrowded, the newspaper was told that at least three patients meant to be in the ward were freely moving about town.’When I want to leave, the nurses tell me I’m not allowed to. But when you ask them about those guys coming and going as they please, you are just told they’re tired. That those guys don’t want to listen,’ one of the patients, who requested anonymity, said.’They just go out the back and go into town without even the security asking them where they are going. They go and sit in the bars, drinking and watching Confederations cup, then come back to the ward drunk,’ the woman, who has been at the hospital for half a year now, said.Another patient spoken to, a San woman, complained that her condition with MDR-TB had not been explained to her upon her arrival at the hospital.She had apparently started to lose her hearing, and on the day the newspaper visited the hospital, started complaining about losing the feeling in her legs.Both conditions, according to an administrative staffer at the hospital, were the result of the medication she was being given.Speaking through a fellow patient interpreter, she blamed the hospital and the medication given to her there, for her seemingly deteriorating condition.’We’ve even requested they give us health training. Not everyone knows the basics around this disease. I’ve managed to do my own research to find out the dos and don’ts. But even if you share that with the others, they don’t want to listen to patients,’ the aforementioned patient charged.A request to respond to the allegations was forwarded to medical superintendent at the hospital, Dr Kabangu, whose only reply to the newspaper was to say he was in training throughout last week.Spokesperson for the Ministry of Health and Social Services, Gladys Kamboo, said last week that the ministry was also awaiting the response to the newspaper’s queries from the hospital.