Thomas Johnson - Medical Blog

My late mother, Helen, 91, died on July 7, 2017 at Groote Schuur Hospital, Cape Town.   She was admitted to the hospital’s Trauma Unit on July 6 after falling at home. It was discovered she broke her femur. Despite her age, she was fit to be candidate for surgery the following day as part of a world-wide trial. But overnight her breathing worsened and we were summoned to the hospital. But beyond the doctor’s immediate concern for her breathing, her life was not in imminent danger. She was stable and breathing unaided, on morphine for pain, but unconscious.   One of my sisters remained with her until midday and later reported that according to the doctors, she was “holding her own” and could recover.    However, unbeknown to us, during the second half of July 7 her condition worsened. On visiting her that evening during visiting hours, we were shocked to discover her on life support (intubated), comatose and her condition very serious. We had not been n...

The following describes my experience of medical negligence at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town. Familiar to anyone who has experienced medical negligence, it relates how the profession – doctors, nurses and administrators – react when their self-styled superiority is challenged and the lengths they go to deny mistakes and avoid accepting responsibility irrespective of the effect it has on patients. (Long read.) 1 Groote Schuur Hospital is one of the city’s major public teaching hospitals. It once had an excellent reputation, although, as with South African public hospitals in general, it has been undermined by large numbers of patients, dropping standards and its administrators’ indifference to the public. In September 2001 I presented myself at Groote Schuur’s outpatient Martin Singer Hand Clinic (orthopaedic department) with a five day-old feral cat bite wound to the right index finger metacarpal phalange (knuckle) joint, an emergency referral by my general practit...