Denosa worrisome over cleanliness, patient care at Bara hospital

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The Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa has raised concerns over poor standard of cleanliness and poor quality patient care at the Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital.

This, according to the organisation is due to the ongoing shortage of linen as a result of breakage of all machines in the laundry.

As a result, seeing uncollected and soiled linen piling up in various units and corridors of the hospital has become a daily norm, which worries nurses about the compromised standard of cleanliness in the facility, said Yandisa Zungula, Denosa regional chairperson.

He stated that because of the way the linen is stored, it is highly likely that most of it may not be fit for re-usage as it would have been damaged permanently.

“The facility is now reliant on the assistance of outside service providers and good Samaritans for the washing of its linen, which often takes longer to wait for clean linen due to the size of the hospital. 

“Out of the three washing machines it has, the hospital has been using only two washing machines at the laundry, after one machine broke down and was never repaired.

Hospital operating without linen cleaning machines

“As of November, the remaining two machines also ceased to operate, leaving the hospital without any means to clean its linen.

“For nursing and many other healthcare professionals, cleanliness in a facility is one of the key contributory factors to better infection control measures,” he remarked. 

Zungula said they are worried that this mishap has already affected the way the patients are cared for negatively, which is not assisting in their recovery management programmes in the facility.

He added; “What concerns us greatly is that, already, nurses are facing the anger and aggressive behaviour of the patients’ relatives when they see the state of filth their relatives are in, which is a matter that is outside the control of the nursing staff. 

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“We has brought this matter to the management’s attention at the facility, which has also come to affect the work of the nurses.”

Zungula called on Gauteng health MEC to intervene and resolve the matter urgently, as she highlighted that the facility looks after far too many patients for it not to have a functional laundry, which will be dropping its standard of care over the mere non-repairing of washing machines.