Media statement
Thursday, 26 January 2023
JOHANNESBURG – The Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa (DENOSA) in Gauteng has noted with concern and disgust the incident at Calcot Dlephu Clinic in Ekurhuleni, where a patient threw what is believed to be urine at the staff who were eating at the time and will report the matter to the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) for further action.
We condemn this incident in the strongest terms and believe that this cowardly act is an act of violence and a blatant disregard of the staff’s dignity and human rights.
We have long called for tighter security measures at health institutions, and this is yet another sign of how poorly nurses and other health care workers are protected by their employer. Where was security when this incident took place? There are reasons why patients are waiting for a long time in queues and most of those reasons are beyond workers’ control and fall in the hands of management.
Issues like shortage of staff, which as DENOSA, we have long been advocating for, remain a concern even though the Gauteng Department of Health and Wellness has made some strides in trying to address them. We have also heard SAMATU raise similar concerns with doctors not being enough as well, which is a contributory factor to patients having to wait for prolonged periods.
We are calling for the Department of Health and Wellness to expedite the investigation into the matter and for action to be taken against the individual who committed this cowardly act of violence against those workers.
This is yet another form of GBV, because one wonders if it was a group of men who were sitting there would this patient have reacted in the same manner; or did he do this because he thought he can get away with it since the employees were women?
As DENOSA, we will be reporting this matter to the SAHRC for further investigation, as those employees’ rights have been grossly violated. We call on the Commission to take swift action against the perpetrator as a way to curb this from happening again in many other facilities.
We view this incident in a very serious light and will be awaiting the outcome of the investigation so that we can follow this to its conclusion. We are investigating on our side if any of the employees involved are our nurses so that we can see how we can support them.
We call on the MEC and HOD of the Department of Health and Wellness to ensure that the wellness of these employees is prioritised, and we expect that these employees should have, at the very least, received counselling.
We also call on the Gauteng Department of Health and Wellness as well as to the Ekurhuleni Municipality to bar this delinquent person from accessing healthcare institutions until he has been counselled himself and poses no danger to staff at facilities.
End.
Issued by DENOSA in Gauteng.
For more information contact:
Simphiwe Gada, Provincial Chairperson
Mobile: 0725631923
Bongani Mazibuko, Provincial Secretary
Mobile: 0716869544
