Appaling service at Netcare Rand Clinic

I'd like to lodge a complaint regarding the appalling service received at the Netcare Rand Clinic from Dr Maphutha ( ********** ) and the overall hospital environment. I went to their casualty department around 20h30 on Tuesday the 2nd of January 2018 complaining of severe abdominal pain. Dr Maphutha presented himself to attend to me literally yawning at every second while examining me. He gave instructions for some pain medication to be administered which was not alleviating my symptoms and I made the nurse on duty aware of it. Dr Maphutha was then informed of the status of my condition to which he then decided to have me admitted in the hospital so I can have an abdominal scan done the following morning as there were no night duty staff at the X ray department. On Wednesday the 3rd of January I waited until about mid-day and then I raised a complaint with the nursing staff as to why I was still not being taken to the X ray department to which I got a response to the effect that the department was busy with other patients and I questioned why I would be pushed far back in the queue to probably attend to walk in patients who had arrived that morning yet I had been at the hospital since the night before. I asked to be discharged if nothing was being done to assist me with my condition. After about 15minutes a nurse reported to my room to inform me that the X-ray department was now ready to attend to me. An assistant from the department came to pick me up from the hospital room and took me to the X ray department only to dump me by the hallway and disappeared without any explanation. After about 10min of sitting there while the reception staff at the X ray department were just sitting idle busy on personal calls I enquired with one of them what I was sitting there waiting for to which I got a very rude response to the effect that I’m not the only patient in the hospital the doctor is still busy with an X -ray of another patient and I’ll go in when they are done. I raised the same concern that I reported at the hospital the night before but they were probably attending to patients that had walked in that morning to which I was dismissed as being a nuisance and it was the ward’s responsibility to send a request to the X ray department on time. Dr Maphutha walked past the department at that moment and I raised my concerns with him as well and he also similarly dismissed my complaint with the statement that he doesn’t work at the X ray department and he is therefore not fami**** with their procedures. Around 3pm Dr Maphutha came to the ward to do his rounds and I then queried what the next step was as I had not been given any medication that day and he informed me that Dr Kasumba a Specialist Surgeon was to visit to discuss my condition. I informed him that I am already a patient of Dr Kasumba and have already 2 Gastroscopies done and a Umbilical Hernia Surgery performed by him in the last year and half and asked if I could book a consultation privately with the doctor as the scan report had shown results related to a condition that he had treated me for in the past and his response was that he cannot discharge me because he needs to provide the medical aid with an explanation of why I had been admitted and at that point he didn't know what to report as the condition. On Thursday I waited the whole day with no medication administered for the said visit from Dr Kasumba who only came around 6pm and I raised my concern that if my condition had been really critical I believe I would have been attended to much earlier than that as I had already spent 2 days in hospital with not much being done. He suggested to perform another Gastroscopy (a 3rd Gastroscopy by him) be done on Friday morning and I challenged him that I had been billed for a day’s stay at the hospital on Thursday with no medical attention whatsoever and he jokingly responded that because it was already after 12pm I had also already been billed until 12pm the next day therefore it made no difference whether I got discharged then or the following day. He confirmed I would be going into theatre at 10am the next day. Friday the 5th I woke up prepared myself for the procedure only to be told around 9am that I was only scheduled to go into theatre at 11.30am. 11.30am came I received no communication from anyone about what was happening until at about 12.15pm I decided I had had enough of that horrible treatment and called a nurse and requested to be discharged. Dr Maphutha was called to my room and very rudely told me to stop with my tantrums as I’m not the only patient in the hospital and can choose to do whatever I wanted and I asked him to discharge me so I can get medical attention elsewhere and then he requested that I sign a Refusal Of Treatment Form to which I refused as I told him I was not refusing treatment but because I was not being attended therefore I saw no point in remaining in that hospital to which he instructed the nurse to document my departure as a patient absconding and I could pack my bags and leave and I made my way out of the hospital. On exit the next thing I get manhandled by the security guards as I was told I cannot leave without a discharge form and I told them to get their hands off me if they didn’t want a lawsuit as the doctor had said himself that I can leave and whatever procedures they had to follow they had to query with Dr Maphutha himself. After being a patient at the Netcare Parklane Clinic several times I have never received such pathetic and unprofessional treatment ever and I didn’t expect this from any of the hospitals in the group.

The ward that I was also booked into Section 3 room 9 was extremely dirty and the room I was booked into was directly parallel to the bathroom where a foul smell was coming from the toilet which literally had a bath towel on the floor as the toilet was leaking and on Friday morning there was a massive pool of water as the toilet had eventually blocked.

After an hour of leaving the hospital I called to speak to the management only to be told that all management are currently on vacation