View all
DENOSA Northern Cape appalled by brazen attack of a nurse at Colesberg hospital
Media statement
Monday, 03 December 2018
The Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa in Northern Cape is appalled by the continuing lack of safety of health workers in the province’s facilities across the province and lack of care by government in this regard.
The latest incident took place at Manne Dipico Hospital in Colesberg on Saturday night where an off-duty community service nurse narrowly escaped harm after she was confronted by an intruder at the hospital’s nurses’ home after he gained easy entry into the facility’s front security.
He broke the window and entered the nurses’ home inside the hospital, with a knife and a screwdriver in hand, and broked into the doors of many rooms of nurses who were on night duty at the time of the incident.
He then proceeded to the room where the community service nurse was sleeping. Fortunately she shouted and made enough noise to awake neightbouring nurses. They took photos of the intruder while inside the nurses’ home, and he was cornered and arrested.
Many health workers are not as lucky as the community service nurse was, and many have met their deaths in similar fashion.
What is more troubling to DENOSA is the heartlessness of the management at the hospital who had not made any attempt to see to it that the victim was offered the necessary counselling for trauma, let alone seeing her. She has since gone back home in Limpopo where she is recovering. She will have to seek counselling out of her own pocket.
DENOSA would like to make it clear that it seeks no favours from the Department of Health when it demands that security be beefed for health workers and patients. That an intruder can just enter the Department premises with weapons speaks volumes about the need to tighten security.
DENOSA demands that a clear example be set that attacks on healthworkers are not to be tolerated, not when we are currently in the 16 Days of Activism for No Violence Against Women and Children.
“Not long ago, there was a break-in at Kagisho Health Centre in John Taolo Gaetsewe Region where an intruder gained easy access into the health facility and broke the window of the car of an on-duty professional nurse while security personnel were on duty, the matter were reported but no response from the employer,” says DENOSA Northern Cape, Gildbert Sak.
Another recent incident is the one in the Francis Baard Region where intruders gained easy access to the facility from a nearby tavern, passing the security and assaulting the nurses.
“Our nurses have mandated us to close the facilities where safety is an issue that doesn’t get addressed. We had engagements with Department of Health’s senior officials regarding the matter and we still await their responses,” adds Sak.
We fear that the same thing that happened in ZFM Region in 2016 where we lost one member who was been killed in the workplace may happen again, and the Department is forcing our hand to close down facilities across the province.
End
Issued by DENOSA in Northern Cape
For more information, contact:
Gilbert Sak, DENOSA Deputy Provincial Chairperson
Mobile: 072 472 9137 or 072 569 9838
