The Department of Health and Social Development in Limpopo is concerned about the escalating incidents of negligence by their nurses towards the patients.

The department’s spokesperson, Phuti Seloba, says: “We find it frustrating that we still get complaints about patients who are neglected or ill-treated by nurses. Our other concern is that this is happening despite several workshops and public hearings we had arranged to address this disease.”

Seloba is saying this, following an alleged incident that happened at Tshilidzini hospital last Saturday, April 29, where a young mother and her still-born baby boy died in a labour ward. According to Margaret Mukhithi, her sister-in-law, Livhuwani Manuga, died because of negligence on the part of nurses.

She says she found Manuga lying in a pool of blood, while screaming with pain in the labour ward on Saturday morning. By that time, the infant’s head was halfway through the birth canal. The infant’s face was also exposed to the outside.

“When I asked the nurses, who were sitting in an open office near the ward, why they were not helping the patient, they said she was too lazy to push out the baby. The situation remained like that until two hours later, when the doctor came and injected the patient before she was taken to theatre. To my shock, the following day when I came back to the hospital, I was told my sister-in-law was dead,” says Mukhithi.

The family believes that Manuga would still be alive if the nurses had attended to her in the labour ward.

It was later discovered that while the mother, Manuga, was in the process of pushing the infant into the world, the stitches of her previous caesarean section were torn apart.

Mukhithi says the family is disappointed about the behaviour of the nurses and they want serious steps to be taken. Seloba says they are busy investigating to find out what happened exactly.

“We are sick and tired of getting complaints from people against our nurses. Patients have a constitutional right to be treated with care,” says Seloba.

Meanwhile, a doctor who was suspended by the department for refusing to treat a rape victim at Nkhensani hospital, two weeks ago, will face a disciplinary hearing in two weeks’ time.