An ongoing pay dispute between the Northern Cape Health Department and nursing staff came to a tragic head this week when a woman died from an asthma attack after Sutherland Clinic staff refused to help her.
Hendrik Maki told Rapport that his wife, Sarah, a chronic asthma sufferer, was gasping for breath beside him in their bakkie when the clinic turned them away saying it was after hours: she died while he was driving her to Laingsburg Hospital in the Western Cape.
News24 reports that earlier in the week, the same clinic had also allegedly refused to help a 19-year-old woman after she drank poison in a suicide attempt. She too had to be transported to a hospital.
The salary dispute about overtime pay has been ongoing since July, and local residents who have needed urgent medical help after hours and over weekends have been turning, in desperation, to the Sutherland Police Station.
Captain Marius Malan, the station commander, confirmed the police had also tried to help the Makis, and that the region was facing a “major crisis”. He predicted it would worsen over the Christmas period.
“We urgently need help. The police station looks like an abattoir, with bloodied people with stab wounds coming to us for help. We are not trained to treat medical emergencies,” he said.
Nurses at the Sutherland Clinic had issued a notice on 24 November saying that from 25 November, no nurse or sister would be available from 5pm until 8am the following morning.
It blamed the crisis on “financial constraints on staff overtime payments… by the Department of Health”.
The Maki couple had arrived at the clinic after 9am, when Sarah had started battling to breathe, but there was only a security guard on duty, who said there were no staff.
Hendrik said he drove around the town for hours trying to find help for his wife: the police even accompanied him to the head of the clinic’s house as well as to the nurses who live in the quarters behind the clinic, but no one responded to their pleas for help.
At one point, they returned to the clinic, where Maki said he and the security guard “stood by the oxygen machine but could do nothing for Sarah because they did not know how to use it”.
Eventually, at 12.30am the next morning, he raced to Laingsburg Hospital, but it was already too late.
Maki made a statement to the police that day and has appointed a lawyer to take the matter further.
What happened to her was unjust and unacceptable, he said, and he wanted answers.
Sutherland previously had a hospital, but in the early 2000s, it was downgraded to a clinic with a 24‑hour service. More serious cases are often referred to Calvinia Hospital, 160km away on a long gravel road
Laingsburg Hospital is 124km from Sutherland, with a tarred road, which is why the Makis tried to head there.
An emergency meeting about the clinic crisis was held in town on Tuesday night.
Dr Marita Malan, who has a private practice in Sutherland, and was also there, told Rapport she was prepared to help over the Christmas period if the strike continued, but insisted she be able to use the clinic’s equipment to handle more serious cases.
When she made this proposal to the Health Department, she was told they could “only respond after 25 days”.
“We do not have 25 days,” said Malan. “I have nothing to gain from this. The past few weekends have been rough … there was a man with a head wound who had to wait an entire weekend to get treatment. What is going to happen over the weekend of 25 to 28 December? What about maternity cases, because there are no longer any midwives here?”
She said a strike “cannot be regarded as more important than a patient’s life”.
Sister Elfrieda Joubert, head of the clinic, would not comment.
Rapport contacted Zamani Saul, Premier of the Northern Cape, who said he would investigate.
He did not say what interim plans had been put in place to manage emergencies.
Mandisa Mereeotlhe, Health Department spokesperson, said they could not yet provide full feedback, but that the Sutherland crisis was receiving attention.
Dimpo Disipi, secretary of Denosa in the Northern Cape, said that although he sympathised with the death of Sarah Maki, the department had to answer for the loss of life, not the Sutherland Clinic staff.
“The clinic is classified as a primary healthcare facility and any work after 4pm counts as overtime. The budget for overtime has been cut by 50%, and our talks with the department started as early as July, but have come to nothing,” he said.
News24 article – Woman dies after nurses refuse to work after hours (Restricted access)
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
Nurses strike over unpaid overtime
Albert Luthuli Hospital nurses picket over pay and vacancies