Patient neglect border lining on abuse

On September 11th 2020, we have had an utterly atrocious experience at Intercare Irene (sub-acute) day hospital. We experienced a level of patient neglect border lining on abuse.

My sister had orthopedic reconstructive surgery on her arm (part of an ongoing series of reconstructive surgeries on that arm). This is extremely invasive and leaves the patient with a lot of pain immediately after the operation. As in any post-operative care the patient should be monitored for a few hours after the operation for nausea or fever or complications. This did not happen at Intercare Irene (sub-acute) day hospital – the moment she came from surgery, my sister was told to get dressed and eat lunch so that she could go home.

No assistance was given to help her get dressed (even though this was traumatic surgery on her arm). The world was still spinning around her, in severe pain, drunk and nauseous from anesthesia – and they expected her to eat. It gets worse … lunch was a store-bought type sandwich, sealed in a plastic container, a cup of boiling water with sealed packages of coffee and milk – given with no assistance to someone who just had surgery on her fore-arm.

Unbeknownst of this, they phoned me immediately after she arrived from theater to come and fetch her – I didn’t know how recently she came from recovery. Getting to the hospital I asked them to please bring her to me in a wheelchair because I know she will be disorientated from anesthesia, and given the severity of the operation in how much pain she would be (and I have to get her to the car). This request was blatantly ignored, I looked up from the entrance waiting area to see her drunkenly swinging towards me, with no wheelchair and no supervision or support. When I talked to her, I learnt that they did not even wait for the doctor to come see her after the operation before bouncing her from her room.

I know the day hospital normally handles less serious operations, and because of the corona situation in larger hospitals they had to deal with cases they are not used to – but I was sure that the nurses would be fully trained, intelligent, able to read a patient chart and act accordingly – I was wrong.

While she was struggling to open a sealed sandwich container, with her broken arm, my sister overheard the head nurse saying “I have only two patients left, then I can leave for the day”. This probably explains a lot. This happened at 12h00 in the afternoon, many hours away from 17h00 ...

Intercare Irene (sub-acute) day hospital Southdowns Shopping Centre, Cnr John Vorster Drive & Karee Street, Irene, 0157