The Real State of Mental Health in South Africa
Times LIVE, the online version of the Sunday Times, South Africa’s premium national Sunday newspaper posted, the following story on 21 November 2010:
www.timeslive.co.za:80/sundaytimes/article773952.ece/This-hospital-is-simply-unbearable
The story has to do with the “unbearable working conditions” at the Tower Psychiatric Hospital in the Eastern Cape Province. The article is a lament by staff on the woeful situation that they find themselves in, as a result of what is referred to in the article as the “chronic shortage of qualified medical staff“.
It goes on to illustrate in further detail how overworked staff are, which is further exacerbated by absenteeism which is described as being “rife“. Nowhere in the article is there even any mention of concerns around the diginity and respect for the human rights of the unfortunate patients. Even the readers who have added comments to the article have missed the point, and are more concerned with politics in the province.
So if Tower Hospital is simply an unbearable place to be working at, then it does not leave much to the imagination about about the quality of “treatment and care” in this facility. One can obviously conclude that perhaps they would have been better off not being hospitalised there at all.
A few years ago at a similar hospital called Townhill, in Kwazulu Natal, there was an investigation of conditions at the hospital by the authorities due reports arising out of there of many abuses taking place.
The Townhill report can be downloaded below:
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