Thirty-year-old Sthembile Mkhize from KwaNyuswa in KwaZulu-Natal says she is afraid to return to her local clinic after she was told to leave the facility during the night while waiting for an ambulance to take her to hospital. 

Mkhize says she arrived at the 24-hour Halley Stott Clinic with her boyfriend at around 3pm on 10 September after experiencing abdominal pain, vomiting, diarrhoea and severe weakness.

Mkhize says she was taken to the high care unit where healthcare workers placed her on a drip and inserted a urinary catheter. She says nurses informed her that an ambulance had been called to transfer her to St Mary’s Hospital. 

Mkhize and her boyfriend, Nkululeko, say they waited for several hours but the ambulance did not arrive. At about 8pm Mkhize says she told the night-shift nurse that she was tired of waiting and the nurse asked her to wait until 10pm. 

According to Mkhize the ambulance had still not arrived by 1am.  She says after repeatedly asking how much longer they would have to wait for the ambulance, the same nurse asked her to sign a form. Her catheter was then removed and she was told to leave the health facility. 

Mkhize says she did not have enough time to read the document and was not given a copy. She believes she was asked to sign a release form stating that she had refused treatment. 

Mkhize and Nkululeko say they spent the rest of the night outside the clinic waiting for daylight before they were able to take a taxi home. 

Afraid to return

Mkhize posted about the experience on social media shortly after being asked to leave the clinic. She says clinic management contacted her the following day to apologise for the incident. 

According to Mkhize, management told her there were not enough ambulances in the area and that the nurse should not have told her to leave the clinic. Health-e News has not independently confirmed what was signed during her treatment at Halley Stott Clinic.

Following the phone call, Mkhize returned to the clinic on the same day. An ambulance was called again, and this time it arrived and transferred her to St Mary’s Hospital for follow-up care. 

According to Mkhize she was diagnosed with an intestinal parasite, received treatment and was discharged from St Mary’s Hospital later that night. 

Mkhize says she has been told to return to Halley Stott Clinic on 14 November for further follow-up care, but she is now afraid to return and says she would prefer to get follow-up care from a different clinic. 

“I am afraid to go back, what I have experienced that day has left me afraid to seek healthcare at my clinic,” she says. “Even after I was called by the management I could see that the staff and some healthcare workers who knew about my story were talking behind my back.”

“I am afraid of my local clinic and I don’t want anything to do with it,” she says.

According to Mkhize, management at Halley Stott Clinic promised to assist her with a referral letter for follow-up care at another facility, but nothing has happened since. 

Ambulance shortages under scrutiny

Mkhize’s experience comes amid ongoing concerns about ambulance shortages and response times in KwaZulu-Natal. 

Last month the provincial legislature conducted oversight visits to EMS bases across the province. Preliminary findings from the visits showed that ambulance and staff shortages and slow response times remained concerns. As of 21 May, only 248 of the province’s 448 ambulances were operational.

In March, the KwaZulu-Natal Legislature’s Standing Committee on Public Accounts (SCOPA) identified an acute lack of ambulances. The committee said chronic delays in repairing state vehicles were contributing to the challenges faced by the province’s emergency services fleet management. 

KZN Department of Health

Health-e News sent questions to the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Health twice last month. The department did not respond to our queries, but Mkhize says she and Nkululeko were contacted on 25 September and asked to attend a meeting at the clinic. 

Mkhize says when they said they could not afford transport, they were told someone would collect them the following day, but nobody arrived and she has received no further communication.

Mkhize says she wants to know what measures the hospital will take to prevent this from happening to other patients in the future. 

“I know I am not the only one who has been treated like this in this clinic.” 

The department had also not responded to Health-e News’ follow-up questions by the time of publication.