Nothing Caring about Netcare

I don't even know where to begin. We pay so much money for our medical aids and for private hospitals, and what do we end up getting?? Terrible patient care!

My father is a very sickly man, and I understand very well that he isn't one of the worlds most easiest patients to have. But as a doctor and a nurse, it is your duty to take care of those who are in need. That is the oath that they have taken.

Saturday the 9th of September, an ambulance was requested for my father... it is no more than a 10 minute drive ( and that can even be pushing it ) from the Netcare Montana hospital, to where he was... it took them nearly 30 minutes to get there. But that is another issue on its own.

My main problem is with the M.I.C.U and the staff. I am so shocked to see how that ward is being managed! First of all, the nurse: Lindi Khumalo, a registered nurse from Nursetec, didn't know anything about the medication that my father was on! My mother and I had to take out each tablet and let her know what it was... I mean really???

Secondly, it is now Monday evening, they have not bathed, let along giving my father a bed bath since he has arrived. He is a man who has had a major stroke and can't walk... So it is certainly not like he can get up and go and take a shower! How can any nurse, just leave a patient like that? But of of course, it doesn't end there... My father ended up having an accident, it took about 15 minutes of my mother and I trying to get him unplugged and up, before the nurse came to "help" us get him to the toilet. Even though it took her as long as it did, we were still grateful have some sort of help. The problem comes in, where she then just leaves him in the toilet alone! A man who has partial paralysis from his stroke...is left unattended. I was absolutely beyond shocked!

Another thing, that I found very disturbing is that they have no idea about patient safety. If a patient is in a isolated ward, there are precautions that are meant to be taken! Hands are supposed to washed, gloves, masks and aprons are supposed to be worn, and the door always kept closed. Not once did I see a nurse was their hands, but then had no problem moaning at visiting family members for not doing it. Doors are left open, masks are not being used... This is how our family members end up getting hospital acquired infections!

Now for me, if you become a nurse or a doctor, it is because your drive in life is to help those in need... I have not seen this at all! What scares me even more, is that I would rather have my father go to Sunward Park Hospital, than where he is now.

I understand that they all work long hard hours, but that is no excuse for what they are doing. If this is what they are doing to our loved ones while we are around, it scares me to think what could be going on when we are not there!

I am truly disgusted with the service, manners of the staff as well as the patient care at the hospital!