The Public Servants’ Association (PSA) has repeated its calls for stricter and improved security measures to ensure the safety of health workers after the fatal shooting of an on-duty nurse in the Eastern Cape.
The 36-year-old nurse was shot by gunmen masquerading as visitors at Zithulele Hospital in Mqanduli on Christmas Day.
Police spokesperson Brigadier Tembinkosi Kinana said two men, who have not yet been arrested, had arrived at the hospital ward, pretending to be visiting a patient. The motive for the murder was being investigated.
According to the Cape Times, the PSA said: “It is not the first time a nurse has been killed on duty, proving that access control for most hospitals is very easy, to say the least. It remains questionable how armed visitors enter hospitals without being detected, as they are supposed to be gun-free areas.
“That strangers can enter the hospital with such ease and shoot the employee like an animal demonstrates porous security. The department needs to quickly close the security gaps.”
The PSA said it had previously cautioned the Health Department to consider security improvements at health institutions.
“The department has dismally failed to beef up security at hospitals. It defies logic why the security officers do not even have basic working tools like metal detectors for them to spot weapons. The CCTVs are either not installed or where installed, (are) dysfunctional or not monitored. The screening of visitors is non-existent and the department must account for the killed nurse as it failed to provide a safe working place for employees.”
Cape Times PressReader article – Nurse’s murder prompts call for security crackdown (Open access)
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