Man jumps to death from window of Gqeberha’s Livingstone Hospital

A 65-year old psychiatric patient jumped to his death from a second-storey window at Livingstone Hospital in Nelson Mandela Bay on Monday afternoon.

The hospital is facing a dire crisis with a shortage of needles, syringes and other medical supplies, but the Eastern Cape Department of Health’s Sizwe Kupelo said the man’s death was not connected to the shortage of needles.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Eastern Cape hospitals run out of needles and battle other critical shortages

He said the man was a known psychiatric patient. The incident had occurred at about 2pm on Monday. He had been admitted to hospital for an unrelated condition.

“The patient had a history of mental issues. His family has been informed and received counselling by the doctors,” he said. “We regret the incident which is regarded as an adverse event.”

There have been several incidents of patients jumping from windows at the hospital in the past decade.

In 2022, the Gqeberha High Court ordered that damages be paid to the widow of George Williams who fell to his death from a fifth-storey window at the hospital in 2013. The court found that Williams, who had been experiencing severe withdrawal symptoms, was not adequately medicated.

On Christmas Eve in 2016, Zanoxolo Mbeki (29) fell from a ward on the fifth floor, and died from his injuries.

In March 2022 the police opened an inquest docket after a 38-year-old patient died after jumping from a fifth-floor window at the hospital. 

Eastern Cape health MEC Ntandokazi Capa is expected to visit the beleaguered hospital soon. 

Her office confirmed on Monday morning that the province has been hit by a shortage of surgical consumables including needles.

This means medical personnel are unable to draw blood, struggling to resuscitate patients because they have no syringes, and unable to use medicine in ampoules. There is also a shortage of syringes, nappies, nebuliser masks, adult oxygen masks, oxygen regulators, special plasters, ECG electrodes and ECG paper.

“There is indeed a shortage of certain surgical consumables including needles. This is a provincial challenge which relates in part to suppliers not able to fulfil our order on time and some import challenges as some of these items are imported by contracted suppliers into the country,” Capa’s spokesperson, Sizwe Kupelo, said. 

“The department is working with her counterparts in the national department and neighbouring provinces to find a lasting solution that will assure availability of these essential items.”

“The department is seized with this matter and we are committed to ensuring that there’s no negative impact on patient care due to these supply chain challenges,” Kupelo said.

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Kupelo confirmed that this was the case in some of the contracts, but that it was due to administrative issues, not a shortage of funds.

The hospital – which is spread over two facilities, Livingstone Hospital and Port Elizabeth Provincial Hospital – has not had a permanent CEO since 2018 when unions literally ran the high-performing and head-hunted CEO, Thulane Madonsela, out of the facility after he brought theft charges against a number of union members. DM