But it did after hospital management kicked the unit out of an admissions ward it once shared with the medical department at Casualty.
This is despite the fact that at least 15 psychiatric patients are admitted to the hospital every day.
‘We were removed with no consultation and with no alternative being provided. So we no longer have an admissions ward for psychiatric patients, although there are admissions wards for medical patients, surgical patients, paediatric patients. All the other disciplines have admission wards. We do not,’ said psychiatrist Dr Wendy Friedlander.
The psychiatric unit has had to make space in one of its male in-patient wards for new patients, but this is disrupting those patients already on treatment.
‘The admission patients are often aggressive, unmanageable, agitated,’ said Friedlander. ‘They wind up the patients that are already settling because they are on treatment, and there is mixing of the genders because we admit both men and women and our new admissions’ area is in a male ward. We don’t have separate bathroom facilities, so we’ve got to have separate times with nurses escorting people to the toilet.’
The South African Federation for Mental Health’s Executive Director, Solly Mokgata condemned the move saying that, ‘ in the event where there is crisis or shortages, mental health is the first to be sacrificed’.
Mokgata added that Bara’s management had to stop treating mental health as ‘the stepchild of health facilities’.
The management of Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital were not avaiilable to comment on this story.
