Umamah Bakharia | ub@radioislam.co.za

4min read
15 September 2022
10:15 am

Staff at state hospitals say they work in fear as they suffer vicious attacks on them by patients.

In an answer to a question in the Gauteng Legislature, it emerged that staff at 17 public hospitals have been attacked since the start of the year from psychiatric patients who were not kept in properly secured psychiatric wards.

Speaking to Radio Islam, DA Gauteng Health Spokesperson Jack Bloom says 16 of the attacks took place at the Weskoppiea Psychiatric Hospital in Pretoria.

“Each of the major hospitals seem to have one or two serious incidents,” says Bloom.

Adding: “most of these attacks are by psychiatric patients in ordinary hospitals [because] they are put in ordinary wards – they are not put in special psychiatric wards and that is the big problem.”

A psychiatric ward is meant for psychiatric patients which has extra security and trained staff equipped to deal with sensitive cases.

However, since patients are being put in ordinary wards with no security, medical practitioners have often become the target for attacks.

“Medical staff are entitled to worry about their safety and something should be done about it,” says Bloom.

A relevant indication to this is the Life Esidimeni incident where 140 mental health patients died while being transferred to an ill-equipped NGO.

Listen to the full interview here: