“Rude and incompetent” staff at Groote Schuur Hospital had a well-known Cape Town author and his family in tears, driving him to Facebook to complain of his “nightmare” experience.
John W. Fredericks, the author of gangster fliek Noem My Skollie, has been diagnosed with cancer.
The Daily Voice can reveal the 73-year-old went under the knife on Monday.
According to John, doctors and nurses ignored him while he had fever, a naked psychiatric patient stole his water, the toilet was full of blood and a patient next to him was left to lie in his own faeces.
John’s famous book was turned into a film, which has won 17 national and international awards and even received an Oscar nomination in 2017.
His Facebook post last week has received nearly 1 000 comments and was shared more than 2 000 times.
In the lengthy post, he described his harrowing experience starting on 8 January after being referred by a private doctor.
“We arrived at the hospital at 04:40 and were allowed to enter at 05:00 to go to Casualty Ward slightly optimistic that we had a referral letter in hand,” he wrote.
“To our dismay, the trauma triage unit was run by nurses with absolutely no urgency, nothing or no one was an emergency.
“People from all walks of life were sleeping on the floors and benches. Many of them were there from the previous day, old and young. My mind boggled! What the Hell!? (sic)”
John says over the next few weeks, he was admitted a few times for tests.
He says the food was terrible and while he was being ignored by nurses and doctors; he read books to help him forget about his hunger.
“On the Sunday night at about 10 pm I awoke with a high fever, I was hot all over and it suddenly jumped into mind, the words; ‘You are dying John’
“I lay down on the bed and after a while, I dozed off as the fever slowly subsided.”
FLIEK: John authored Noem My Skollie
John says he felt sorry for a patient next to him who pleaded for help after soiling himself as nurses could be heard chuckling down the corridor.
In another ward, he wanted to use the toilet only to find it covered in blood.
He says he waited for hours for cleaners to arrive, who did a poor job of cleaning, and the patient who made the mess eventually cleaned it up himself using Dettol.
He was also moved to the psychiatric ward, he says.
“At about 4am, I heard a sound behind me and I turned my head and discovered a guy standing butt-naked next to my bed, his blanket on the floor and him drinking from my water bottle,” John wrote.
“It was like a flashback in my film where Gums tried to slide into my bed.
“I screamed, ‘What the f***! Djy jou t**f, hoeko drink djy my water!? Then he started swearing at me, ‘Jou ma se ****, die’s my water!”
“It hit me that I was in a ward with crazy people. I would prefer to die peacefully at home.”
Western Cape Health Department spokesperson, Marika Champion, said the department regretted that the patient had a negative experience.
She said staff were expected to treat patients with dignity and respect.
“Should this not be the case, we urge the public to let us know via one of the many channels for complaints,” she said.
A relative of John said on Monday they were in talks with hospital management about his bad treatment.
The relative said John was in surgery and the family would not be able to comment.