Deemed too old for a hip replacement after a bad fall, Hannie Barnard (85) from Genl de Wet in Bloemfontein was admitted to the Pelonomi Academic Hospital on 5 February, and only got into theatre on 27 February.
She was released on 4 March and returned to the hospital on 18 March to have her stiches removed.
According to her daughters, however, the surgeons had to remove one of the pins in her hip that had been inserted during the first operation.
After she was released, the wound became infected and she was re-admitted to hospital on 1 April. Since then, until her release on Friday, 2 May, her days have been stressful.
Barnard is but one of the many patients who spend days, weeks and even months in public hospitals in Mangaung, waiting for treatment and operations.
Dekker Hanekom was in a serious motorcycle accident on 5 April.
He was admitted to Pelonomi with a bad fracture to his right lower arm. He went to theatre a few times to clean the wound and underwent his first operation on 23 April. His wife, Ronel, said Dekker was often told he cannot eat or drink anything because he would be taken to theatre.
“Sometimes up to 14 or 16 hours went by before they told him that he would not go to theatre on that day. During that time, he had to go without food or drink.” He is diabetic and needs insulin, but with the erratic way he got his meals, it caused is insulin to be unstable.
According to Marietjie Parkin, Barnard’s daughter, her mother spent days without food and chronic medicine, waiting to go to theatre.
“The worst part is that we battled to get feedback from staff and doctors on duty.”
When Barnard was released on Friday, the doctor on duty said she had more than 60 patients to attend to.
David Masoeu, DA spokesperson on Health in the Free State Legislature, said they were shocked by the number of patients in urgent need of surgery.
“Some of these patients face dangerously long waiting periods,” he said in a press release on Friday.
According to the response of the provincial MEC for Health, Monyatso Mahlatsi, the backlog for surgeries at the Universitas Academic Hsopital was 6 118 from January to March, and at Pelonomi 558.
These statistics show the backlogs were especially high in the ophthalmology (3 650 operations) and orthopaedic (1 500 patients) departments.
At Pelonomi, the general surgery and urology departments battled with a backlog of 220 patients in these months, with facial and oral surgery battling a backlog of 226.
According to the answers that Masoeu received, waiting times in Free State public hospitals for orthopaedic surgery ranged between four weeks for femur fractures to five years for arthroplasty (hip replacements).
Patients waiting for ear, nose, and throat (ENT) operations can wait anything between three to nine months.
Another patient, Joyce Prinsloo from Jagersfontein, broke her arm and was admitted to Pelonomi on 8 April.
Her surgery took place on Monday, 5 May after almost a month waiting.
Mahlatsi said the huge backlogs is due to shortage of staff.
Dekker was released from Pelonomi and will receive a much needed operation in Universitas next week. Ronel said while he was in Pelonomi, there was never a shortage of staff, but they were not very helpful.
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