BusinessLive reports that the Eastern Cape health department has lifted the suspension of five nurses for allegedly refusing to attend to a Covid-19 patient without personal protective equipment (PPE) at Grey Hospital in King William’s Town.  

The patient subsequently died.  Khaya Sodidi of the Democratic Nursing Organisation of SA (Denosa) indicated on Sunday that the department had said the nurses were suspended after “refusing” to attend to the patient.  “But we established that the issue was that there were no PPE at the dedicated Covid-19 ward when the patient was admitted.  It [PPE] was [withheld] from the nurses by management.  Unfortunately, by the time the PPE was made available to the nurses the patient had died,”Sodidi stated.  It was apparently decided at a meeting between Denosa and the department on Friday to lift the suspensions.  “The five nurses are going back to work on Monday.  The department realised that there were no grounds to suspend the nurses,” Sodidi said.  Departmental spokesperson Sizwe Kupelo rejected allegations of shortages of PPE, saying the provincial government had an obligation to not send “soldiers into the battlefield without providing them with ammunition”.  He added:  “We are equally not going to allow a situation where patients are abandoned, neglected or refused help.  We are the last line of defence as health workers.”

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Luyolo Mkentane at BusinessLive

Get other news reports at the SA Labour News home page