Rehoboth patients left waiting in pain

Rehoboth residents have raised concerns over poor treatment, long queues and alleged negligence at local public health facilities.

The say health services at St Mary’s Hospital and Rehoboth State Clinic are slow and patients are often not assisted.

The Namibian visited the clinic two weeks ago to investigate.

“How long will we have to suffer like this? It has been years, but there’s no change,” Carol Swarts, a patient, said.

She said patients go to hospital in the morning only to return home late at night.

The Namibian has observed some patients waiting from 07h00 until 01h00 the next morning for assistance.

Another patient, Mara Nell, said the queues are always long, with sometimes no doctor on duty.

“The nurses will tell us they can’t do anything, because they are waiting for a certain doctor. Why is this happening?” she asked.

St Mary’s Hospital was founded by the Roman Catholic Church in 1923 and initially operated as a mobile clinic.

It has since developed into a hospital which also rendered primary healthcare services across the country.

Ansua Hammerslaght, a resident at the town, believes her sister, the late Dessery Hammerslaght, would have been alive today if state healthcare had provided better services.

Dessery had frequent headaches and was a regular patient at Rehoboth State Clinic.

On 13 March Dessery’s condition worsened.

“The ambulance transported my sister from our house at Rehoboth to Rehoboth State Clinic, where she was put on a bed from 12h00. That day my mother was arguing with doctors and nurses to admit my sister and treat her.

“However, the doctor told my mother she couldn’t admit a patient for a headache. One nurse even laughed at my mother,” she says.

Ansua says by 17h00 that day her sister had still not been admitted.

“My mother begged and pleaded for them to treat her as an emergency, but nothing came of it. She had to watch the life drain from my sister while Dessery was in agony,” Ansua says.

She says nurses later advised her mother to go home and fetch clothes for Dessery as she would be admitted.

When the mother returned to the hospital an hour later she was told her daughter had died.

Ansua says medical staff should not follow this profession if they are not committed to saving lives.

“They took an oath that they would do their best to save lives. We as a community go to the state medical institutions to get help. We do not go there to be disrespected,” she says.

Another patient, Mario Platt, urged the medical staff to love and care for patients.

“Staff must know patients are not to be messed around. It’s because of us that you have a job,” he said.

Platt said the two facilities’ staff members are often rude to patients.

Minister of health and social services Esperance Luvindao after her first public visit to a hospital recently acknowledged the difficulties faced by both staff and patients.

She emphasised the need for collaborative solutions to improve service delivery.

Luvindao said her office is prioritising these concerns and would engage with the relevant directorates to address them.

The Namibian has been reaching out to both St Mary’s Hospital and Rehoboth State Clinic since 24 June, but has received no response.

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