The Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa (Denosa) in Gauteng has castigated medical doctors who continue to defraud the public healthcare system by claiming for, and getting paid for hours that they do not even spend at hospitals.
Gauteng Denosa provincial chairperson, Simphiwe Gada, told journalists in Joburg on Sunday that at times doctors are not at the hospitals at some moments when they are supposed to be performing commuted overtime, yet they get paid for it.
Additionally, Gada said these doctors treat patients badly and would need to be re-trained on the Batho Pele principles of government.
“On the attitude of doctors, we want to advise Samatu (South African Medical Association Trade Union) to not play to the gallery by condemning all hard-working health workers and managers but rather to invest on training their members, which are the doctors, on ethics and also on the attitude that they display and how they treat our patients. They should treat our patients with dignity.
As an example, Gada said the recently trending case of Tom London, the former broadcaster who was a patient at Helen Joseph Hospital complained vigorously on the attitude of doctors within the facility.
“Tom London was on record, clear, saying he never received bad treatment from nurses but he noted the bad attitude from the doctors. We think that Samatu must concentrate on that and employ the same energy they are employing in calling for the department of health to be overhauled in terms of managers.
“They (Samatu) should also fix the attitude that their members have. They must also talk to the theft that happens in terms of commuted overtime where people who are supposed to be on duty, especially doctors who must work overtime, you find that they split their shifts.
“If they are supposed to work on a weekend, one will work on Saturday and the other will work on Sunday. When they claim, they claim as if they were all present on both days. These are things that talk to ethics,” he said.
Gada said “theft and corruption comes in many forms in many forms” and currently, the doctors are getting away with murder.
“They are taking the time that they should be treating South Africans and using it to gain money (at private health facilities),” he said.
Earlier this month, IOL reported that the veteran broadcaster Tom London pleaded with the Gauteng Department of Health not to return him to Helen Joseph Hospital after his video exposing mistreatment, negligence and poor infrastructure went viral, while was battling to afford R600,000 operation at a private hospital.
London, whose real name is Thomas Holmes, made headlines after exposing the non-functional medical equipment, poor infrastructure and negligence at the hospital on social media through a video that went viral.
In the video, while in the hospital ward, he bemoaned bad treatment from the doctors, whom he claimed treat patients like cockroaches.
In an interview with IOL, London said he developed a chest infection and was using over-the-counter-medication.
His condition deteriorated and he was taken to the Helen Joseph Hospital, but only to encounter the worst treatment ever from the medical doctors.
London said when he was admitted to the hospital he anticipated recovering well from his infection, but instead endured bad treatment from the hospital staff.
He said upon arrival, he was diagnosed with empyema, which caused by a bacterial infection of the lungs.
“The doctors then drained a lot of fluid from my lungs and later gave me antibiotics to treat the infection. However, the treatment of doctors towards patients in this hospital is horrible,” London said.
“While I was here in the wards, doctors would come do rounds in the wards, fill in patients' files without asking them whether they are getting better or not. They just come here and treat you as if you’re not a human being, in fact patients are treated like cockroaches there.”
He said a patient in the same ward died in his bed owing to liver failure and was left unattended for more than four hours.
“There were flies coming from the outside and entering into the window of the ward as a dead man’s body was lying on the bed unattended. The man died on September 7, at 6am in the morning and his body was left unattended for more than four hours.”
London said after spending 13 days at the hospital, he then decided to leave as within hours of the post going viral, hundreds of his fans contributed to a fund for his treatment at the Mediclinic Hospital in Morningside, a private hospital.
IOL