First government hospital experience

I haven't been in a government hospital myself in probably the last 20 years, but people close to me have been in Tygerberg and Karl Bremer Hospital quite a few times in the last couple of years for various reasons including very very serious treatments and operations for life-threatening conditions and my view is:

- It looks crappier and scarier than a private hospital
- No nice TV, no super nice meals, and no room with few people (really crowded wards with dodgy looking characters)
- Waiting times are long and you usually have a sense of what the hell is happening/going to happen/does anyone know you're there

BUT
- The perception of "you're going to be butchered and die in a public hospital" is unfair and a myth
- The skills of the doctor's are good and the skills of the surgeons are great, you're in safe hands
- It's really cheap

So it's a bit like an old Volvo - it looks crap, it's uncomfortable but it's safe and does the important things right.
 
All good if it's an emergency or scheduled operation that's not urgent but if it's a slow niggling medical condition that's life threatening you may see the darker side?
 
The small town gorvernment hospitals is probably where you'll get the best experience. I took people to Tygerberg a lot in the past, and it was an horrid experience. Even Ebendonges and Grooteschuur, not so good experience. Long queues etc.
Caledon, Hermanus etc, small town hospitals is way better.
 
WTF. I grew up in Cape Town, I've been to a private hospital once in my life. I've never heard of this H3 but I earned way over R72k/year and my visits to Falsebay Hospital (which once included surgery and a five day stay) never came to more than R 100 or so including medication - normally it was closer to R 40.

In my second week in Gauteng my fiance ended up in a private hostal (Netcare in JHB) and the service she got was shyte compared to what I'm used to from CT. Even so, we're gonna be paying this crap off for a year or two.
 
Oopsie said:
I had a complex tachycardia event and was taken to the Fishoek Hospital. The Doc on duty said there is nothing he can do and even opened the medicine cabinet to show me that there are not even Panados. I was transferred to Wynberg Hospital. There, I was put on a gurney and wheeled into the emergency room with 10+ patients and just left there for the whole bleeding night with no attention.
A very frightening experience.
Thankfully it reverted back to normal by itself and I was given a bill of R360 for their trouble. That sent me back into tachycardia.
Then the ambulance bill arrived. A massive R6 500.00 for a 20 km trip. Need I say that this caused a severe cardiac event.
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I was once in Falsebay Hospital on a Saturday night that had 27 stabbings and two gunshots, but that's tame compared to Wynberg where you can end up in a ward with terminal Pollsmoor inmates chained to their beds with guards. NOT cool.
 
I work at Tygerberg (in IT). The Doctors that deal with you are of the same "level" of those that you will encounter in a private hospital, also it is a tertiary education hospital meaning you will more than likely be "handled" by registrar (aka students who are specialising in their field) doctors but everything is overseen by fully qualified and experienced doctors. One major probem with that hospital is that it is way to big to manage like you would a private hospital. To add to this there are simply too many people that need care hence the long waiting times.
 
My wife had to go to Helen Joseph in 2008 while waiting for her medical aid to activate.
Besides the 13 hour wait the doctors weren't bad, the actual facilities were horribly out of date, as if it was the late 80s and nothing has been painted or replaced since.
My gran frequents Johannesburg General and besides waiting a really long time she gets brilliant treatment. The facility is a bit better than Helen Joseph, but maybe marginally.
 
I've visited a couple of PE gov hospitals for volunteer work and wow that scared me into making sure I have medical aid. I don't care if the care is the same. If for any reason I'm in a hospital, I would at least like assurance that my bed is not covered in dried blood.
 
boeriebuffet said:
I haven't been in a government hospital myself in probably the last 20 years, but people close to me have been in Tygerberg and Karl Bremer Hospital quite a few times in the last couple of years for various reasons including very very serious treatments and operations for life-threatening conditions and my view is:

- It looks crappier and scarier than a private hospital
- No nice TV, no super nice meals, and no room with few people (really crowded wards with dodgy looking characters)
- Waiting times are long and you usually have a sense of what the hell is happening/going to happen/does anyone know you're there

BUT
- The perception of "you're going to be butchered and die in a public hospital" is unfair and a myth
- The skills of the doctor's are good and the skills of the surgeons are great, you're in safe hands
- It's really cheap

So it's a bit like an old Volvo - it looks crap, it's uncomfortable but it's safe and does the important things right.
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Good post. I felt like that as well. Tygerberg is so big a homeless person could probably live there for a few weeks in different sections before being recognized as a non patient.
 
A few years back my girlfriends nose was broken after she was assaulted by a group of drunk females (sic) for no reason. The kind people at Groote Schuur Hospital gave her a brilliant nose job for R50 including a few days stay in hospital. How is that for a bargain.
 
boeriebuffet said:
....
- No nice TV, no super nice meals, and no room with few people (really crowded wards with dodgy looking characters)
....
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Disagree from my personal recent experience, you only find that in emergency ward.

You have private rooms still that is given on a individual basis. When I arrived I was given a private room, I was then transferred to a room with 6 beds but was large enough to take 10+.

You cannot be admitted if they don't have a bed for you, they won't make place like a taxi.

Yes, some dodgy people but I've found the same in private hospitals. Most of the real dodgy ones fall off the list for planned operations for failing to pitch up in time anyway. I found my fellow patients to be amazing individuals who represented all walks of South African life.
 
Admiral Snackbar said:
Tygerberg is so big a homeless person could probably live there for a few weeks in different sections before being recognized as a non patient.
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This actually happens at Bara...

Source: I have a family member who works there.
 
I don't think anyone is disputing the level of care at many government hospitals(that is if they have the meds/dressings/sutures etc in stock when you have a visit) but it's if you fall between the cracks or need attention promptly that things can get a little(or terrifyingly) scary.

All I know with 100% confidence is if I'm in a medical emergency that's serious I don't want to go to a government hospital. If my leg is shattered really badly I want to be attended to asap, not left to lie for a week with insufficient pain management, been some stories about the hospitals in mpumalanga I think it is, guys mangled in car smashes waiting days for surgery with panadoes for meds, kid you not. Also met a lady whose leg was wrecked, like a swollen mass of nastiness because it was badly broken and no surgery was done(due to the theater backlog) till it was too late. Amputation was the only solution she could choose as naturally she couldn't go to a private hospital to try fix the mess a little better.
 
Three years back I woke up at 1am with a headache so bad, I couldn't see straight. I went to Claremont Hospital and the waiting time was 2hours. Said to myself, screw it, I'm going to Groote Schuur. I arrived at around 2am. The entrance looked like a scene from a zombie apocolypse, dim lighting, barbwire and dodgy folk staring at you, calculating if you had anything valuable. There were people sleeping in cardboard boxes in the waiting area, many appeared as though they'd been there for days. The guy at the front desk, behind bulletproof glass mumbled something about 'stickers' so I set off on a mission to collect what was required. I wandered blindly through the hospital asking nurses for stickers - I managed to get a green one off a nurse in some random ward. She informed me I needed to get some different colour stickers from the other side of the hospital before I could see a doctor - she couldn't explain the purpose of each sticker further than 'you need them'. So, I wandered a little more into areas even more dimly lit than the entrance. Two and half hours later, feeling like death and realising I was completely lost and there was nobody willing to help, I asked myself 'what the eff am I doing'. I worked my way back out of the hospital, to my car and went home. I suffered until the GP opened a few hours later and was prescribed good ol' Myprodol. Since then I've made sure to keep stock of Myprodol at home and at the office.

So yeah, while I've never had the wrong foot cut off or anything that dramatic, my last hospital visit was pretty terrible and wouldn't wish it on anyone - public or private.
 
Grahamstown was public/private, was decent. Public side was just 8-10 beds a room not 4 in private. Eventually went to PE for surgery(Kidney stones) at the private hospital and got stent removed at public hospital.


Malawian gardener went to Helen Joseph but they treat foreigners like **** there.
 
airborne said:
All good if it's an emergency or scheduled operation that's not urgent but if it's a slow niggling medical condition that's life threatening you may see the darker side?
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This. If it's not an emergency that needs to be seen to asap then you're screwed.
 
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