Six hospitals shun dying man

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http://news.iafrica.com/sa/804117.html


A Pretoria heart attack victim died after being turned away by at least six private hospitals, Beeld newspaper reported on Thursday.

Jan Faber (66) died in theatre at the Unitas Hospital, in Centurion — the seventh hospital approached to take him.

His wife San Faber (62) told the newspaper that he had a heart attack at their home in Mountainview at around 2am on Tuesday morning.

She called Netcare 911, an ambulance arrived at their home within eight minutes, and paramedics stabilised him.

The paramedics then contacted the Eugene Marais, Akasia, Moot and Bougainville hospitals, only to be told that they were not accepting patients.

Beeld reported that it was thought this was because their intensive care units were full.

Faber was also rejected by the Montana and Wilgers hospitals.

Just after 4am, the ambulance was accepted at Unitas Hospital and Faber was rushed to theatre, but he died just after 7am.

According to the newspaper, Netcare and the Life Hospital group said they were investigating.






could one of these hospitals not have just stabilised this man before sending him to another hospital? absolutely shocking.
 
That's horrific ! Ai private hospitals are messed up,father took my mom to hospital and he was like can you start treating while I do the forms and they refused. She couldn't even stand. Took just over an hour before they took her in
 
My grandma had a seizure and needed critical help, she was turned away at Kuilsriver private hospital and 2 other private hospitals in cape town, the only place that took her in was Tygerberg Hospital, she does have medical aid btw, so why mess around with peoples lives like this, it was shocking that a piss poor government hospital like Tygerberg took her in, she was took good care of and was then send to the medi-clinic at Tygervalley.

Scary.
 
Kudos to Netcare for arriving within 8 min.
I'm thinking he would have required emergency surgery to even stand a chance.
 
It sounds like these were all private hospitals. Why am I not even surprised? They would rather let you die if you can't pay; profit before professionalism.

They could've at least stabilised him and then transferred him to a state hospital afterwards.

And 2 hours before he was admitted? Paramedics have this thing that they call The Golden Hour; patient needs to be admitted to hospital within the first hour - not sure whether it's from the time trauma occurred, or from the time the patient has been stabilised.
 
VernD said:
Paramedics have this thing that they call The Golden Hour; patient needs to be admitted to hospital within the first hour - not sure whether it's from the time trauma occurred, or from the time the patient has been stabilised.
Click to expand...

From the time the incident occurs.
 
Sometimes I can see why government has a vendetta against private hospitals. It's exactly because of incidents like this.

Private hospitals are good once you're actually accepted, this is where they trump state hospitals. State hospitals on the other hand accept everyone - Bara actually has one of the best trauma units in the world.
 
They HAVE to take in anyone in an emergency, even if the person has no medical aid. After the patient is stable they can transfer him to a government hospital.
 
Well, its seems strange, but if they did not have the facilities to look after the guy then what more can you ask?
I'm sure since they where calling the private hospitals first that he did have a hospital plan at least. And since the Paramedics contacted the hospitals first before just taking him checking for space seems to be a common occurrence.

If they had taken him in and then he died because they did not have the correct facility available for him (which he may have done anyway)then there would have been a shtstorm of note.
 
ThatOtherGuy said:
They HAVE to take in anyone in an emergency, even if the person has no medical aid. After the patient is stable they can transfer him to a government hospital.
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What they have to do, and what they actually do, is usually two different things though. You could go the legal route for medical malpractice, but then you'd have to be prepared to sacrifice a lot of your time and money in legal mumbo jumbo.
 
Madman88 said:
If they had taken him in and then he died because they did not have the correct facility available for him (which he may have done anyway)then there would have been a shtstorm of note.
Click to expand...
The should have the facilities to stabilise a patient at the very least. If they don't have the space or facilities then they can transfer him once he is stable.
 
Mike Hoxbig said:
The should have the facilities to stabilise a patient at the very least. If they don't have the space or facilities then they can transfer him once he is stable.
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He was stabilized by the ambulance. What he needed was surgery.
 
Its about commercial gain.


These guys can live with people dying.


There is a price on human life...if you don't have the funds on hand you will die. Simple.
 
SinghDude said:
Its about commercial gain.


These guys can live with people dying.


There is a price on human life...if you don't have the funds on hand you will die. Simple.
Click to expand...

Youre not paying attention. Its not about the money in this case.
 
This is Illegal. As far as I know if a person has a life threatening "condition" then no hospital is allowed to turn him/her away.
 
Went to the "emergancy" unit on a friday night, had to wait for about 2 hrs before being admitted. Not much of an "emergancy" unit. After finding that the hospital didnt have a 24hr pharmacy, I went to other hospitals for the medication finding their emergancy units just as backlogged.

I would like to blame the shortage of skills, but I'm not sure why it's so bad.
 
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