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Musina councillor arrested over immigration stamps - page 4
Did xenophobia play a role in hospital staff’s decision not to assist severely ill man?
“How can they act this way?” For almost seven hours this man, who was to weak to admit himself to hospital, was ignored by staff at the Louis Trichardt Memorial Hospital. The man, a Zimbabwean, collapsed in the hospital garden. He was eventually admitted but died five days later. Photo supplied.
Hospital ignores dying man By Isabel Venter
Is this the level of service residents can expect from the Louis Trichardt Memorial Hospital? This is the question after a man collapsed in the hospital garden last Wednesday and was left unattended for almost seven hours by both hospital and security staff. The man, who was later identified as a Zimbabwean, collapsed right next to the pathway leading to the nursing manager’s office and emergency rooms. Covered in his own faeces, he was too weak to get
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himself into the hospital building. The Paquot couple, Julian and Dienie, spotted the man in the garden when they visited their domestic worker and her child, who had been bitten by a snake. According to Julian, they noticed the man early in the morning when they brought the child to the hospital. By 17:00 that afternoon, when they brought food and clothes for the domestic worker, the man was still lying on the grass in agony. Nobody, it seemed, took any notice of him. Hospital staff were approached, but they alleged-
ly told the couple that they could only help people when they booked themselves into the hospital. “How can they act this way? The man is lying in their garden – it’s supposed to be a hospital,” Dienie remarked. Security guards also shrugged their shoulders and told the couple that “it was not their [security’s] job to help patients.” Everyone, including the nurses, refused to supply their names when Julian requested them to do so. Eventually the matter was brought to the Zoutpansberger’s attention, but when the newspaper
arrived at the hospital, the man had just been moved inside. It was later established that the man died five days later. Another big question is whether the man’s nationality had something to do with the fact that he was not assisted. Judging by one security guards comment, xenophobia might have played a role. The guard was caught on video referring to the suffering man as a “f*#king Zimbabwean”. Off camera, he also laughed at the photograph of the man covered in his own faeces that Julian had taken as proof. (Contd on P2)