'Patients are left to die in Atlantis Day Hospital'

Refilwe Moloto speaks to Cape Coloured Congress Councillor Stacey Davids about the concerning state of Cape Town's Atlantis Day Hospital -which is facing staff, medical and equipment shortages.

A string o challenges continue to taint South Africa's public healthcare system that the most vulnerable in society are subjected to.

Refilwe Moloto speaks to the Cape Coloured Congress Councillor Stacey Davids about the concerning state of Cape Town's Atlantis Day Hospital - which is facing staff, medical and equipment shortages.

Davids says the conditions at the hospital do not meet the needs of its community.

The councillor says she has seen how patients have been left to die due to a lack of urgent care and attention at the facility.

She adds that the waiting period for medical attention is four hours, sometimes even two days, because the institution is critically understaffed.

Patients are sitting outside and waiting two days to be assisted, from no medication – going back and forth – to getting the wrong medication. Patients are dying the situation is bad.

Stacey Davids, Cape Coloured Congress councillor

Davids has tried to flag the life-threatening conditions at the hospital to the relevant authorities.

She describes how she contacted Western Cape Health MEC Nomafrench Mbombo during her visit to Atlantis and invited her to see what was happening at the hospital during youth month.

Davids says the MEC turned down her advances:

I sent her the screenshots of where the patients were complaining on Facebook of how bad the services are and she blatantly ignored it. She never popped in at Atlantis. She was there at the Youth Day celebrations, dancing there with the residents but she never popped in at the hospital

Stacey Davids, Cape Coloured Congress councillor

The solutions from government is building an extra clinic or refurbishing the hospital to allow for larger capacity, says Davids.

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