The SA Medical Association (SAMA) has again called for better, more stringent security measures at public sector hospitals after a doctor was hijacked and narrowly escaped being raped last week, reports TimesLIVE.
The incident took place on Tuesday (15 February) when the doctor, at Mapulaneng Hospital in Mpumalanga, was returning to the hospital’s residential quarters after her shift: she was hijacked, robbed at gunpoint and the gang attempted to rape her.
“She is, rightly, extremely traumatised by this experience,” SAMA said.
This follows the killing of a nurse at Thembisa Hospital earlier this month by her partner, a policeman.
In a statement, SAMA said that that it had, on numerous occasions, raised safety concerns that “doctors in public sector hospitals live and work in constant fear and, in general, feel unsafe within their working environments”.
It proposed, yet again, that stringent security measures be urgently implemented to protect healthcare workers and patients.
Attacks and hold-ups at government healthcare institutions are nothing new. Both patients and staff have, over the years, been subjected to a number of incidents.
As reported in MedicalBrief on 29 September 2021, female medical professionals, doctors in particular, were increasingly becoming “physical and emotional punch bags” for some patients – even male colleagues.
The Sunday Tribune wrote at the time: “Over the past 10 days three female doctors have been on the receiving end of violent attacks and emotional abuse while on duty.
“Dr Mandisa Kubeka was assaulted with a file by a patient at the Lillian Ngoyi Community Clinic in Soweto, while the previous weekend, a patient stabbed two female doctors at the Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe Hospital in Kimberley, Northern Cape.”
In the previous year, at the same hospital, TimesLIVE reported, four people dressed in personal protective equipment (PPE) shot dead a patient and stole the cellphones from patients in the ward.
In September 2019, SAMA reported that more than 30 hospitals countrywide had reported a variety of security incidents in the preceding five months: being help up at gunpoint, kidnapped newborns and assaults, with a Bhekisisa report saying the government’s piecemeal approach may be leaving healthcare workers in the firing line.
And also in 2019, Free State University suspended its training at a Bloemfontein hospital over security concerns after an incident where a doctor prevented a rape attempt only by virtually biting off her assailant’s tongue.
In some cases, even those who are tasked with “caretaking” the premises and patients have themselves been guilty of transgressions.
Two security guards implicated in assaulting an elderly patient at Estcourt Hospital, and a nurse who filmed the incident, were suspended last year, reports News24, while in another case, a teenager was allegedly raped at Stellenbosch Hospital, where she was undergoing psychiatric treatment. The hospital manager, security guard on duty and a nurse said to have witnessed the incident, were all suspended pending an investigation.
Patient stabs two women doctors in Kimberley hospital casualty
Protests after psychiatric patient (15) raped at Stellenbosch Hospital
SA’s women doctors are ‘physical and emotional punching bags’ for patients and colleagues
Attacks on doctors highlight security dangers in state hospitals
Estcourt Hospital guards fired, nurse suspended, following assault on patient
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
Calls for improved security at psychiatric hospitals after patient stabbing
Hospital security fails yet again with another patient shot dead in Durban
35 Gauteng healthcare facilities are 'crime hotspots'
Safety protests shut down Mpumalanga out-patient services
The long, slow collapse of South Africa’s top hospitals
Motsoaledi outrage over attacks targeting Limpopo doctors