Patients at an Eastern Cape hospital are starving on meagre rations after its food supply ran out.

As a result, friends and family members of some patients have been forced to take meals to the hospital as food served by the hospital kitchen is insufficient or unhealthy.

Nurses this week broke their silence on the shocking state of the Fort Beaufort Hospital, saying conditions under which they were forced to work were “challenging”.

The nurses, who all asked to remain anonymous, said due to a severe shortage of general workers at the facility, they were often forced to mop floors, wash dishes or serve meals.

They also raised issues over lax security, saying they feared for their and patient safety, especially after dark.

In recent months knife-wielding robbers had entered the premises escaping with cellphones, jewellery and money belonging to patients and nurses.

Department of health spokesman Siyanda Manana yesterday downplayed the allegations, saying the hospital was “not in a bad state as depicted”. He also denied that patients went to bed with empty stomachs.

However, during a Saturday Dispatch visit to the hospital this week, reporters managed to walk around the entire facility without spotting a security guard.

In some of the wards visited, patients were seen sleeping in beds next to broken windows – some covered in plastic or cardboard.

Manana said it was only the female ward which had broken windows and that the department had instructed hospital management to fix them.

Toilets were also broken, others looked in an unhygienic state and the stench of urine filled the air. Fresh blood stains were visible in some.

Nurses and patients claimed they sometimes went for weeks without toilet paper and were forced to use newspaper instead.

Buckets filled with green, dirty water, mops and mosquitos could also be seen at the entrance to some wards. Some ward wash basins were blocked, while ward kitchens were filthy and unhygienic.

Medical files with confidential patient information were found in an unlocked room. On no occasion did anyone stop the team or ask what they were doing in the hospital.

Dirty and smelly hospital linen could be seen scattered next to some wards, while leaking water pipes, overgrown grass, uncollected refuse and cracked walls were just some of the other issues plaguing the Fort Beaufort Hospital.

Although vegetables, samp, rice and other food items were delivered last Friday – days after the fridges ran empty – some patients were not happy with the food offered. A patient in a female ward, who only identified herself as Phelisa, said they were starving most of the time.

“I don’t know when last we ate meat in this place,” she said, adding that the nurses did their best to improve the situation. “But it seems their efforts are hampered by a lack of resources.”

The Dispatch team was told that 49 patients were in the hospital at the time of the visit. “What is happening here is not supposed to happen at any hospital,” said one nurse.

“We sometimes run out of food to give to our patients. Just last week, we had to prepare only 5kg of mince meat and white samp for all our 49 patients.

“On another day, we served them white samp and soup with just butternut on the side, no meat at all. With such a diet, some of our patients even lose hope they will get healed.”

A colleague said that because of the staffing issues nurses sometimes “get down on our knees and mop the floors, wash the dishes and even help in serving food to our patients”.

A senior nurse who has been at the hospital for more than 20 years said: “We have been trying for years to raise such challenges with authorities, but it seems our cries are falling on deaf ears.”

But Manana denied there was a staff shortage, saying “we have staff to clean the hospital”.

He said the hospital had a budget and therefore had food. “Patients do not go to bed without a decent meal,” he said, adding that health MEC Dr Pumza Dyantyi would soon visit the hospital to “engage” management.

“When we have challenges such as food shortages, we assist each other as sister hospitals. Patients never [go] without a meal.

“A post of a kitchen supervisor was vacated in February 2016 and will be advertised shortly.

“For security issues, nurses were unhappy and had a complaint around February this year and management sorted out their safety concerns,” said Manana.

But concerned community member Sindie Tokwe said local residents had also been trying “for years” to bring the plight of the hospital to the attention of the department.

The Bhisho legislature’s health portfolio committee chair Mxolisi Dimaza said yesterday the situation had been brought to the attention of the committee and they had instructed the department to look into it.

“We have not gone there but we decided on giving the department a chance to rectify these things. We are expecting a report from them by Monday, before we consider our next move,” Dimaza said. — asandan@dispatch.co.za