05 Apr 2017

One live was lost at Scottish Livingstone Hospital in the year 2016 following a fall from a balcony, health and wellness assistant minister, Mr Phillip Makgalemele has said. He told Parliament on Tuesday that there was no compensation made, adding that following the incident, some measures were put in place to avoid future similar occurrences.

The measures include assessing all patients for ‘risk of fall” and taking necessary measures, clustering of patients to nurses “eye view”, introducing the call system whereby patients alerts the nurses of any type of emergency, he said. In addition, the assistant minister said there are also security personnel walkabouts in the ward to report any suspicious idling patients.

Member of Parliament for Takatokwane, Mr Ngaka Ngaka had asked the minister to state the number of lives that were lost at Scottish Livingstone Hospital in the year 2016 resulting from patients falling from the first floor wards to the ground. MP Ngaka also wanted to know how the relatives were compensated and what measures were put in place to avoid similar occurrences. ENDS