CLOSE RFM HOSPITAL NOW - NURSES

MANZINI - Close RFM Hospital! This is a firm call from Swaziland Democratic Nurses Union (SWADNU) to government and it follows the incident of a woman who gave birth to twins at the Raleigh Fitkin Memorial (RFM) Hospital last week, yet she was a suspected case of COVID-19, and was later confirmed positive while she was still at the health facility.

The call for closing RFM Hospital was issued by SWADNU President Bheki Mamba during an in-depth interview, which was conducted by this publication at SWADNU conference room yesterday.

Protected

Mamba said medical practitioners who attended to the woman, were not aware that she was a suspected case of COVID-19, who was awaiting her test results, and they were not fully protected when assisting her. On top of that, he said they allegedly had it in authority that a wife of an RFM Hospital employee also tested positive for COVID-19, while her husband is still awaiting his test results. In fact, he said the wife was tested after her husband fell sick. In that regard, the nurses’ union president said the Ministry of Health should close the hospital.

“Thereafter, all wards and departments should be fumigated,” the president said.
He added that government should then conduct mass testing of all RFM Hospital staff members, particularly health workers, for COVID-19. He said after establishing the accurate situation regarding the number of COVID-19 cases among the staff members, a way forward on how it should operate would be discussed before reopening.

Furthermore, the president said government would be accountable for any COVID-19 related death or infection among his cadre. In fact, he said their (those who might die) blood would be in government’s hands.

Equipment

He said this was because after government failed to provide health workers with personal protective equipment (PPE), a majority of the members from various health institutions in the country, including RFM Hospital, recused themselves from a situation which they believed could place their lives in imminent danger.
“They did this by exercising their right of revoking Section 18 (2) of the Occupational Health and Safety Act No.9 of 2001, by removing themselves from work because they did not have PPE,” the president said. Section 18 (2) of the Act says; ‘An employee shall have a right to remove himself or herself from danger when such a worker has reasonable justification to believe there is imminent and serious risk to his/her safety and health’.

However, Mamba said when government learnt about the situation, it allegedly intimidated the health workers to go back to work without supplying them with PPE. He said this was against the workers’ right of invoking the said section in order to protect themselves from imminent danger.
The president said according to their understanding of the law, the current situation in the country was a state of national disaster based on the National Disaster Management Act of 2006, not a state of national emergency based on the Constitution.

Human Rights Lawyer Thulani Maseko also sang the same tune with the nurses union by saying the situation in the country was a state of national disaster, not a state of national emergency. He said this pandemic was all over the world and countries like the neighbouring South Africa for example, declared it as a state of national disaster. On that note, the nurses’ union president said the state of national disaster did not supersede the right for workers to remove themselves from work if they believed there was imminent danger. He said it was only a state of national emergency based on the Constitution that superseded every other law. 

“That is why even the World Health Organisation (WHO) recommended that essential service providers, including health workers, should be compensated if they get infected while executing their duties,” the president said. He said they were aware that the queue of patients at RFM Hospital was too long as it extended to outside the boundaries of the health facility.

Infected

He said since the health workers at the hospital had not been tested, it was possible that the people in the queue would be exposed to the deadly virus because there were possibilities that some of the health practitioners had been infected.

Meanwhile, RFM Hospital CEO Benjamin Simelane referred this publication to the facility’s line ministry; the Ministry of Health.
Minister of Health Lizzie Nkosi said she needed to contact the hospital’s Board of Trustees and other critical stakeholders for their comment first. However, by the time of going to print, the minister said she was still waiting for the above parties’ responses.

It is worth noting that, recently, Mbabane Clinic, which is under The Clinic Group, closed for a short while. This was after a staff member tested positive for COVID-19.

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