FF Plus will approach HRC about treatment patients receive in state hospitals

1 July 2022

The FF Plus will approach the Human Rights Commission (HRC) and request an investigation into the inhumane way patients are treated in state hospitals.

The decision to do so was made because the party frequently receives complaints from the public. One example is a case in the Free State where a patient, who had been in an accident, has been waiting to have a procedure done for the past seven months.

The FF Plus's MPL in the Free State, Armand Cloete, has already sent official letters about the matter to the Free State MEC for Health and is currently working on finding a solution to the problem.     

State hospitals have performed very few operations since the level five lockdown and as a result, there is an enormous backlog.

The FF Plus is currently also handling complaints from patients in Pretoria who need hip replacements; some of which should have taken place at the Steve Biko Hospital two years ago already. Patients in excruciating pain are sent home without any medication again and again.

In addition to complaints about the lack of medical treatment, the party had to intervene numerous times in cases where patients were not given food and water or were left lying in corridors or on the floor, or had to wait for hours, sometimes even days, before being admitted or even examined.

Complaints were also received from cancer patients who went to state hospitals for their chemotherapy treatments, but were turned away seeing as the hospitals did not have the drugs needed to treat them.

The FF Plus is currently busy conducting an investigation into the case of a patient who died in a tent at the Steve Biko Hospital without being treated. The party has also asked the Minister of Health, Joe Phaahla, to provide written replies to these issues.

In 2019, the FF Plus warned on the highest level of government that urgent intervention is needed to address the crisis in state hospitals. This request fell on deaf ears and now the crisis is getting worse by the day.

The FF Plus maintains the view that South Africa's public hospitals have turned into abattoirs and morgues, and these recent cases prove that the party is not wrong in that regard.

The days of talking and warning are over and deliberate action must be taken to hold the government accountable.

Issued by Philip van Staden, FF Plus MP and chief spokesperson: Health, 1 July 2022