Thomas Johnson - Medical Blog

These are anecdotes about alleged poor care and negligence at Groote Schuur Hospital  and other public sector health facilities in the Western Cape and around the country as and when I hear about them. I'll occasionally include stories about poor service in other public service fields. I was told these stories by friends and family of affected patients or experienced them myself. I accepted their veracity at face value, or if it occurred to me or my family, vouch for their authenticity. I'm not in a position to verify second hand accounts, and even if I was, the hospital or other service providers would not provide details due to confidentiality and not wishing to publicise poor service. There may be sound, mitigating explanations for some of these accounts. But I shall stick to the facts as I understand them. These stories are  unlikely to be known to or covered by the media which tends to concentrate on the sensational, facile, "racism" and other politically e...

The Western Cape's Independent Health Complaints Committee (IHCC) is dysfunctional. In personal correspondence in September, head of department Dr Beth Engelbrecht said there are “logistical” problems with committee member appointments, whatever that means. Complaints that had been referred to it – I don’t know how many others apart from ours – have been cancelled. Complainants should refer them to the public protector, national health ombudsman and SA Human Rights Commission. She didn't answer when I asked when she expected the IHCC's problems to be resolved and if my complaint would be investigated then. The IHCC’s enabling provincial act does not provide for cancelling complaints that had already been submitted, which makes the cancellation illegal. It's also probable our complaint was the only one cancelled, which if so, is highly irregular. I doubt Engelbrecht's explanation is true, though, because chapter 2, section 18 of the National Health ...

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...