Groote Schuur Hospital rejects claims of negligence
|Published
As more people complain about the treatment they get from Groote Schuur Hospital, the facility is at pains to explain the challenges it faces. Picture: Henk Kruger/African News Agency As more people complain about the treatment they get from Groote Schuur Hospital, the facility is at pains to explain the challenges it faces. Picture: Henk Kruger/African News Agency
Cape Town - As more people complain about the treatment and service they get from Groote Schuur Hospital, the facility is at pains to explain the challenges it faces.
In a story published on November 6, Faried Jassiem told of how he was misdiagnosed after he complained of headaches and was vomiting blood.
He was given a headache tablet and told to go home. After much discomfort and efforts by his wife to get proper help, he was diagnosed with a brain tumour at Groote Schuur.
Tracey Lee Lincoln from Woodstock said her mother Glorane Lincoln, 54, was misdiagnosed at the hospital only to be told that she had cancer, two weeks before she died.
Lincoln said her mother battled for three months after she was sent home with morphine and no other medication, while doctors tried to figure out what type of cancer her mother had.
“There were many instances in which she was treated badly.
“She was basically sent home with morphine. In the last two weeks before she passed away they told us she had cancer which spread to her lungs.
“Until today we don’t know where the cancer started,” said Lincoln.
Groote Schuur hospital chief executive Dr Bhavna Patel said misdiagnoses were highly unlikely at the hospital as there were no reports on misdiagnoses during her term.
About five doctors and medical practitioners make a diagnosis on each patient to rule out faults.
Patel said patients, especially cancer patients, often don’t reveal their diagnoses to their family members and doctors are bound by patient confidentiality to not disclose patients’ information even after they died.
Lincoln said she saw the doctors’ report which said that her mother suffered from Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) and lung cancer, but the doctor never revealed this to her mother and never treated her for COPD.
Another reader, Tanya Smith, said her husband died two years ago after doctors diagnosed him with sarcoidosis and treated him for it for 18 months, only to discover he had lymphoma a few weeks before he died. Smith said the more doctors treated her husband for sarcoidosis, the sicker he became, vomiting blood and experiencing a high temperature which saw him bedridden, but requests for oncology tests to rule out cancer were denied.
Patel said sometimes diagnoses were not straightforward and doctors who were in contact with Smith did what they could to assist Smith.
Patel said there was a countrywide problem at health facilities that are unable to keep up with the demands of patients as patient loads increase while staff numbers remained the same.
Patel said Groote Schuur went out of its way to reduce patient waiting times, by partnering with private institutions and extending working hours of staff.
@IamAthinaMay