On the 5th of March 2018 I took my 14 month old baby girl to the Melomed Private Hospital in Richards Bay. She was suffering with a high fever, bad cough and heavy chest. The doctor in the emergency room did a perfunctory examination and diagnosed Bronchiolitis. Our baby was admitted and from day one our poor child was subjected to terrible service.
An intravenous line was inserted into her left hand but it was done incorrectly and caused the baby great pain. She was given antibiotic on the assumption that she had a bacterial infection. The IV line slipped out of her hand after a few hours because it had not been inserted properly. The IV was then inserted in her right foot but unbeknownst to us this was also done incorrectly. The next day she was due to receive a dose of antiobiotic at 10am which never arrived. Due to her deteriorating condition my baby was put on a solution of dextrose. A nurse came to administer medication and it was not flowing through the IV line so she forced it through and caused tremendous pain to the baby. Another nurse later administed medication to my child and never recorded it anywhere. 2 hours after that another nurse came to administer the same meds again and I stopped her and informed her that the meds had already been given. She insisted that it was a different set of meds however I could clearly see that it was the same. I insisted that the other nurse be called back and then they realised the mix up. Had I not picked this up, my baby would have been over dosed. Due to the nurses not recording info, giving meds at all different times etc, I actually took the meds and kept it with me and had to administer it myself. The next day a nurse came to administer a second, different antibiotic and then we realised that the baby's foot had swelled up to double its size. Due to the IV not being inserted properly, all the meds and dextrose nutrition which we thought she was receiving was actually filled up in her foot and started leaking out profusely. Also, there were blood tests, x rays and mucus tests done and several times I requested for different nurses to please come and interpret the results for us but this never happened and we were left in the dark as to what the test results actually meant. After the second incident with the IV the nurses removed it and said we would have to wait for the swelling to go down before reinserting. I asked for some treatment to help heal my baby's foot but this was not done. For most of her stay in the hospital my baby was in agony, screaming. Her fever never broke and her condition only got worse. My wife and I brought all these issues to the attention of the unit manager several times in a very calm and professional manners and all our complaints were noted down each day, but nothing changed. The service only got worse and more frightening. On the third day we decided to take a forced discharge and take our baby to another hospital. When we tried to do this we were subjected to various stalling tactics and evasion. I managed to speak to a doctor in durban who agreed to help us and he requested some info from the patient file. When I requested the staff to assist the doctor with this info, the file was taken and hidden. When I requested to see the file myself, I was told it had gone to management. Thereafter the nursing manager came to the ward and asked us to give the hospital another chance. She said that she would insert the IV herself and ensure it got done properly. At the time my baby was absolutely exhausted and sleeping. The nursing manager and unit manager grabbed my baby out of the cot, roughly breaking her sleep and then took her to the treatment room to insert the drip. They closed the door and I stood outside anxiously waiting. I had to endure over 15 minutes of hearing my baby's agonised, tortured screams as they bungled the third attempt to insert the IV and ended up injuring my baby in the process, causing her to bleed profusely all over the treatment room bed. Eventually I opened the door, went in and rescued my baby. She was limp, exhausted and traumatised.
That was the final straw. We took our baby out on a forced discharge and rushed her down to the Victoria Hospital in tongaat. We took a chance and gambled because our baby's condition was critical but we were so desperate that we had to make a call and save our child from these monsters.
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