PSYCHIATRIC HOSPITAL A MESS

I would like to pass my disappointment at the way the National Psychiatric Hospital is being managed.

This is the only psychiatric institution in the country and it seems the Ministry of Health does not care about the welfare of the patients. Patients are not provided with toilet paper and sometimes they are given food that is rotten. The management is failing to supervise the staff as almost all the staff members come late for work and leave early and the absenteeism rate is too high. Nurses no longer want to do night shift duties. One wonders why the no-work no-pay rule is not applied to officials who absent themselves from work. There is a man, who is called the plumber of the hospital, who stays in Mbabane, who always comes at 9am and leaves at 12.45pm every day. There are orderlies who leave at 1pm long before knock-off time. Government is paying people for doing nothing in this hospital.

The worst thing is that orderlies are now allowed to sell fruits, vegetables, fat cakes, snacks and sweets along the corridors of the hospital. One wonders when do they do their work when selling their wares during working hours. Really the hospital has no active management. When faced with problems management takes leave and runs away from the challenges. It is not workable in this hospital. Another thing that is a problem is the shortage of resources. Staff members are not given tools to use when carrying out their duties whereas they are expected to perform to the required standards. One wonders how the budget of the hospital is done yet the institution wants its staff to provide quality services to citizen of the country. There are committees formed by management and I am worried about the way they were established.

These committees are non-starters. How can you put someone in a committee without his or her consent? Lastly, I heard that the hospital is still using the old ways of diagnosing patients and end up giving wrong medication to patients.
Nowadays, internationally, DSM V is the new tool which is used to diagnose patients, but the Psychiatric Hospital is still using the DSM IV tool. Patients are really diagnosed wrongly and end up getting wrong medication. The Health Ministry must do something about these issues.

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