Neelam Rahim | neelam@radioislam.co.za

3-minute read
07 October 2023 | 17:33 CAT

Two security guards were caught on video assaulting a 13-year-old disabled boy who is also a resident of a place of shelter at Ladysmith Hospital recently. | Screengrab

The Health and Allied Workers Indaba Trade Union, or Haitu, says it will not defend criminal and abusive healthcare workers.

This follows an outcry after a video was circulated on social media, showing two security guards dressed in uniforms assaulting a 13-year-old patient in a ward at the Ladysmith Hospital in KwaZulu-Natal. In the video, the patient in a hospital bed can be heard asking for forgiveness and pleading with them to stop hitting him.

In another incident this week, a nurse was arrested in Eastern Cape after he allegedly raped a patient in a toilet at the Taylor Bequest Hospital in Matatiele.

Speaking to Radio Islam International, the President of Haitu, Rich Sicina, said. At the same time, there are many reasons people may talk about, including poverty levels, shortage of staff and gross shortage of material resources; there is no excuse for these incidents.

“There is some dark cloud hanging over our public health care system, we have humans without humanity,” Sicina added.

He said the wrong attitude of some healthcare professionals, the criminal conduct by some officials, the lack of equipment and medicine, and sometimes the general behaviour of hospital staff chiefly contribute to the tainted perception of public healthcare across South Africa.

“More often than not, as a union, your job is to be a lawyer, you are a representative, a vanguard of workers on the ground – against any form of injustice. But then, if the injustice is done by your members, I would rather be outvoted as the president of this organisation if we are actually going to be forced to defend nurses, our members even if they are wrong,” said Sicina.

He says, “We need to send a very strong message that we are not going to represent mediocrity. What those security guards did there, and this incident (of a nurse allegedly raping a patient) is unacceptable. Those doing it, and those thinking of doing it, must know that we will actually assist the court, as a union, so that they face the music.”

Sicina said Haitu is sending a clear message to healthcare workers that their profession demands the utmost and delicate care towards patients.

“The image of our profession in nursing generally, the healthcare system in the public sector has been tarnished. Nobody wants to go to our public healthcare facilities because of gross shortage of staff, staff attitudes, there is no medication, and nobody cares,” he said.

Listen to the full interview on The Daily Round-Up with Moulana Junaid Kharsany.