Casualty chaos is blamed on chronic patients

WHILE more and more people have slammed the lack of care for patients at Livingstone Hospital’s casualty unit, the hospital yesterday attributed the backlog to its being overwhelmed by the number of patients with chronic medical problems, while the unit was meant to deal with emergency and accident cases.

This week directors of a Nelson Mandela Bay safe house for women said the unit was a shambles and a basic right of patients was being violated as they were not getting adequate access to medical care.

Gary and Shelley Koekemoer, who run the Bet Sheekoom House of Restoration in Port Elizabeth, say that on two separate occasions they have had to wait several hours for women to receive medical attention at the beleaguered hospital.

The couple, who take in women in crisis, said they had been using the facility for the past eight years, but that it had been appalling for the past month.

"There has always been a wait when we have gone there, when we needed to take these women in for medical care. Sometimes we would wait up to four or five hours, but for the past month things have really been shocking,” Shelley said.