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News24 reports that according to the Democratic Alliance (DA) in Gauteng, public hospital staff in the province are working in fear, after several staffers were slapped, punched or bitten in 43 attacks by psychiatric patients at 17 public hospitals since January last year.
This information was revealed by Health MEC Nomathemba Mokgethi in response to questions from the DA about the attacks. Allegedly, psychiatric patients are not kept in properly secured psychiatric wards and attacks also happen in departments outside of psychiatric units. Weskoppies Psychiatric Hospital had the highest number of attacks. In one instance, according to Mokgethi, a patient who wanted to be discharged assaulted a cleaner before attacking a doctor a few days later. Security guards were on strike at the time. Accordingly, the DA's spokesperson on health in Gauteng, Jack Bloom, has proposed that Gauteng public hospital safety audits be conducted. Where security risks were high, especially at hospitals that received psychiatric patients, adequate steps must be taken to ensure the safety of personnel and patients, he said. Bloom claimed facilities were inadequate even though pledges had been made to improve mental healthcare after the widely publicised Life Esidimeni tragedy. He added: “Staff and mental health patients are victims of this neglect which needs to be rectified as soon as possible. It's yet another failing of a department plagued by mismanagement and rampant corruption.”
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Zandile Khumalo at News24
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