A nurse at Helen Joseph Hospital has been accused of manhandling, punching, and injuring a family who were visiting a patient and who have since opened a case of assault – as has the nurse, reports News24.
Noorene Sallie, her mother (77) and her aunt (75) had gone for a routine visit to their hospitalised cousin, but had become unwittingly embroiled in a distressing incident.
“This was a shocking and violent experience involving elderly women being assaulted by hospital staff, negligent medical care, and a culture of intimidation and cover-up among staff,” Sallie told News24.
Gauteng police spokesperson Lieutenant-Colonel Mavela Masondo confirmed a case of common assault has been opened, and that the matter was under investigation.
Sallie said when they arrived at the hospital on 1 November, they found a group of nurses surrounding their relative – a scenario that they later discovered involved restraining him.
“They asked us to leave the room, and one of them pushed my mom through the door and slammed it on on her back.”
Shortly thereafter, they were allowed back into the room, and saw their cousin in visible distress – restrained, screaming in pain, and struggling to breathe.
“He was in agony …he kept saying he couldn’t breathe, and I tried to see what was going on with the oxygen that they had put on.
“I noticed that the pipe was so large that it didn't fit into his nostrils, and so it kept coming out,” Salie said.
She claimed that when she sought help from the nurses, they were hostile, dismissing her concerns.
“Two of them followed me into the room… one tried to help, but the other one kept saying that there was nothing wrong.”
The nurse also asked her whether she was an “oxygen airflow specialist”.
“I told her that my mom was on permanent oxygen, so I know a bit about oxygen. I work with it every day with my mother.”
Sallie said she also questioned the necessity of restraining her cousin, as he is an amputee with no means of mobility to “escape”.
“It’s not particularly useful to tie him up and restrain him, because there was no wheelchair, no crutches, so no way he could leave the room on one leg,” she said.
When her concerns were dismissed, Sallie said she began documenting the incident by taking photos.
This apparently enraged one of the nurses, who grabbed her phone, attempted to break it, and threw it on the floor.
She said the situation devolved into physical violence when the nurse allegedly struck her aunt and mother.
“She hit my aunt on the neck. My mom, who had been sitting on the chair beside the bed, got up to go and pick up the phone but the nurse punched her on her head and… her neck.”
“She grabbed my mother around her neck, and I ran around the bed to intervene, but the nurse also punched me repeatedly.
“I feel saddened by this whole incident and experience. I’m angry and I feel that there is no justice in our society. They [nurses] are supposed to be nurturing and caring, but you get assaulted and abused. It’s very sad.”
The Gauteng Department of Health expressed regret over the incident, noting that the safety of both employees and patients remains a priority, and that the matter is under investigation.
“It is an unfortunate incident wherein both parties have reported the matter to the SAPS,” the department’s Ireen Manyuha said.
Manyuha said the severity of the patient’s condition warranted the use of mechanical restraints, which the attending doctor prescribed to protect him from self-harm.
She added that the patient had been restless and “not co-operative”, which compromised clinical care, and the attending doctor had prescribed mechanical restraints to ensure the oxygen assistance “was safely secured”.
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