A Bhisho Hospital patient suffering from psychosis stabbed a nurse who refused to share a cigarette with him, using an Okapi knife stolen from a security guard’s lunch bag that was unattended on the premises.
Hospital CEO Phumla Mnyanda reported that the patient (20) stabbed nurse Nkosinathi Maphukatha in the chest. The nurse’s hand was also injured as he attempted to defend himself from the knife-wielding patient in the hospital’s courtyard.
Doctors treated the wounds and sent him home to rest after their assessment found him calm and clinically stable, reports News24.
According to the report, Maphukatha had screamed for help and two security guards, who were not in the courtyard as they were supposed to be at the time, came running and handcuffed the “aggressive” patient.
They detained him at a seclusion cubicle where he was sedated.
The patient said he had found the knife in “a black bag”. The only bag found unattended was the security guard’s, the report added.
The patient had been admitted for 72-hour psychiatric observation after doctors at Grey Hospital suspected he was suffering from acute psychosis, induced by substance abuse.
The report noted that during his stay at the hospital, he had shown signs of aggression and psychosis.
In line with the Eastern Cape health policy, patients suspected of suffering from mental illness are first admitted at a district hospital for evaluation.
After 72 hours, patients are meant to be discharged and either sent home or, if necessary, to a psychiatric hospital.
The patient’s 72 hours had lapsed when the stabbing occurred.
The incident has thrust the Eastern Cape Health Department and several health unions back into a collision course over the dangers psychiatric patients pose to hospital workers.
Unions have long told the department that nurses are not trained to handle psychotic patients and that security measures in this particular hospital were lax.
In a crisis meeting on 30 October, union leaders repeated long-held views to the hospital’s management that a highly secured ward for psychiatric patients needed to be constructed.
The unions further highlighted a need for nurses to be sent for advanced psychiatry training as they possess only a basic knowledge of handling psychotic patients.
The wounded nurse is in hot water, too, for smoking in a no-smoking area.
Mnyanda also ordered that the guard who brought a knife into the hospital, the security guards who were not at their posts at the time of the attack, and the person responsible for allowing a “violent psychotic” patient to stay past his 72-hour observation period should all be held accountable.
“The matter need(s) to be investigated thoroughly and consequence management will apply,” said Mnyanda in the report.
The patient has since been transferred to Cecilia Makiwane Hospital and all psychosis patients have been removed from the hospital as per the unions’ demands.
This is not the first such incident at Bhisho Hospital. In March 2021, a soldier who was also being held for observation, stabbed and wounded a patient.
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