POLOKWANE – Review received several complaints regarding the staff and the long waiting periods patients have to endure at the clinic’s maternity ward.

Women visiting the maternity ward are forced to wait long hours before being helped by a nurse or a doctor, often times not being helped at all and then have to go through the entire process again the following day.

This happens to all patients, regardless of if they are pregnant or not.

According to a 27-year-old mother she went to the clinic to register for the birth of her child who is due in September but her visit to the clinic was unsuccessful because she hadn’t been attended to.

“I arrived at the clinic early in the morning and by 14:00 I hadn’t been helped because the staff said they were busy with deliveries.

“I left because there was no point in me being there if I wasn’t going to be helped,” she explained.

She further added that the personnel at the clinic will sit around and “look busy” to avoid assisting patients, or patients are sent back to reception to “pretend they have been assisted”.

Spokesperson for the Department of Health, Derick Kganyago, said the health department is aware of the challenges the clinic faces and they are in the process of hiring more personnel to ensure patients who are reliant on the clinic for healthcare are assisted.

“We agree that Rethabile Clinic is short staffed and we are aware of the unhappiness of the patients. We are doing our best to rectify the situation. We recently began internal investigations regarding nurses who don’t assist patients in a professional manner,” Kganyago told Review.

Read more:
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Patients left to own mercy at Rethabile

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raeesak@nmgroup.co.za