The famous landmark at the foot of Devil’s Peak has some of the world’s best physicians, surgeons, specialists, trauma nurses and healthcare workers. But that is where Groote Schuur Hospital stops being world-class and with NHI on the cards, Cyril has a job on his hands, writes Gasant Abarder in his lastest #SliceofGasant.
It was at the scene of the world’s first-ever heart transplant where my wife Laylaa and I were locked into the Outpatients section for the best part of 50 minutes during evening visiting hours. We took a wrong turn and went through a door that was meant to be locked but only locked once it closed behind us.
We frantically scoured the dark and creepy floors of the Outpatients looking but failing to find an emergency exit. Laylaa kept her calm pose and was trying to solve the puzzle. My breathing intensified as I kept repeating: ‘In the horror movies, they kill the black dude first.’
Before adding: ‘It’s the blonde, blue-eyed female lead who makes it out alive.’
There is something you need to know about me in emergency situations. I either go into a flat panic or I freeze and malfunction. My body can’t move. Like the time Laylaa and I were dating, and my PlayStation 3 emitted a spark that set her bed alight. For some odd reason, I lifted the bed and just stood there while Laylaa dealt with the blaze.
On a second occasion, now as a married couple, a chap tried to scoop up my laptop from the bedroom floor in the middle of the night using our pool net through the window. I woke up to this scene and screamed non-stop, grabbed a cricket bat and stood in the corridor at the crease like Kepler Wessels not even trying to hit the ball with a rate run of 1.85 per over.
(Also, I would never be Oscar. Instead of reaching for the Doom under my bed, I would wake up Laylaa to deal with the spider I had just spotted in the corner of the bedroom.)
Laylaa and I eventually made it to the reception area of this building where I convinced myself many had died over the years. I swore I could hear the cries of their ghosts as I prised open the automatic double doors. The front door was locked though. But just outside, about 12 metres away, was a parking attendant with her back towards us. We tried for what felt like ages to get her attention with me banging on the glass doors.
Eventually, she turned around and the look on her face was not one that inspired optimism. She shrugged her shoulders and went off looking for a security officer. It was now 7.45pm and we probably wouldn’t see my nephew. The security guy ambled over and instead of having a magic key to set us free he had an accusatory look on his face as if we were burglars. He was going to come fetch us, he said. But 10 minutes later he still hadn’t arrived.
I then called the hospital reception and after much uhm-ing and ah-ing, we were ordered back to the original door that locked behind us. We decided to take the stairs just in case the lift got stuck and I kept waiting to be grabbed by Freddy Krueger, Jason or Michael Myers (the slasher not the Austin Powers actor). But finally made it back and were set free. Wasn’t this a fire risk?
Visiting hours were over. But I was determined to see my nephew and no one really cared that it was well past visiting hours. Wasn’t this a security risk?
This isn’t my first waltz with Groote Schuur. On my birthday, 6 years ago, I had a pregnant Laylaa – straddling her first and second trimester – sitting on a hospital bed for hours with a gall bladder that needed removing. In that time, they hadn’t given her as much as a Panado for the excruciating pain.
We had medical aid. But Bonitas said Laylaa had an exclusion for something completely unrelated. After hours of arguing they eventually saw the light and sent her to a private hospital that could help her immediately.
On another occasion, my diabetic 80-year-old dad hadn’t eaten for two days and needed a drip for about 10 minutes. But they made us wait (me in the car) until the next morning as all manner of shooting, stabbing or assault victims were helped first whenever it was his turn to be treated. During this time, the security guards refused to allow members of the public to use the toilets.
The place doesn’t look lekker and smells like urine in the parking and pavement areas. If this is the finest of our state facilities in the much vaunted ‘best run Province’ then we’re in deep trouble – especially with the government now trying to push the National Health Insurance Bill through.
He has a nightmare on his hands to level the inequality of private versus public health facilities that is much worse than Laylaa and I being stuck in the house of horrors that is a desolate Outpatients section at Groote Schuur.
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Picture/s: Gasant Abarder