Tsolo hospital managers, guards seize and terrorise Dispatch team

A trip to one of SA's oldest hospitals, Tsolo’s St Lucy's Hospital built in 1906, turned into a nightmare for two DispatchLIVE journalists.

The hospital has been neglected for many years. Staff still live in mud structures with some saying the buildings are a disaster waiting to happen. Hospital walls are cracked, the paint is peeling, and the roof is full of rust.

DispatchLIVE went undercover to investigate these allegations.

The staff we met on the afternoon of Monday February 4 were reluctant to speak.

But the Dispatch managed to sneak into the hospital. After about 30 to 40 minutes, as we were about to leave, the team was questioned by the management team who had heard that there were journalists in their hospital. We were asked what we were doing there, as there were no problems at their hospital.

DispatchLIVE co-operated and was sent to the hospital boardroom. Once there the hospital's four management members, led by a senior woman, started interrogating the DispatchLIVE journalists. They wanted all the pictures to be deleted and they demanded to know who had led us to the hospital. We refused on both counts.

The hospital manager called for some muscle, and in minutes a few senior security guards came in to be “part of the meeting”.

The manager said that if we did not delete the pictures taken inside the premises, we would not be released.

We told them that it was difficult to just release our equipment to them or to reveal our sources, let alone allow them to force us to delete our pictures. The threats kept coming.

More security guards were called from other sites to try force us to give them the cameras so that they could delete the pictures at will.

An hour passed. It was tense and tempers ran high.

We continued to refuse to allow the officials and guards to take control of our investigation and censor our work.

We explained that if they had problems, they should call the editor and their bosses in Bhisho to get it spelt out that attacking the press was in breach of the law.

In the second hour it got nasty. The guards were trying to order the hospital staff to leave the boardroom so that they could get their hands on us without anyone watching.

The management “gave powers to the security guards” to do what it took to get the pictures, basically to use violence.

The four managers left the boardroom and DispatchLIVE was locked in with about five security guards, a ratio of two journalists to five thuggish looking chaps.

We informed the manager what the consequences for her and her staff would be if she orchestrated this act of censorship and any beating that would clearly come with it.

She proclaimed this was her hospital and she would do anything to ensure the pictures were deleted.

The guards went for my colleague and started grabbing his camera equipment.

I said I would be recording this violation.

At the point where they were about to pound us, the female manager returned and said they should take us to the security gates and 'do it' there.

We were forced into the security guard house. Inside, handcuffs emerged and the nine guards threatened to cuff us.

The main entry to the hospital was locked and some nurses abandoned their stations to gawk at the chaotic scene.

Three hours later, DispatchLIVE still refused to be stripped of the photographs, while repeating that the hospital and guards should check with their Bhisho bosses and get approval for their actions.

Seeing that we were not dancing to their tune, the head of security, ominously threatened to call “the community to deal with us”.

This man, who was in civilian clothes, then tried to say this “community” was so fearsome that it had killed a “stock thief” and made the even more sinister point that no-one had ever been arrested.

It was getting dark, and fear started setting in.

A few “villagers” started to gather outside the hospital and conversed with the security guards.

The hospital manager said she was making calls to her people and that we were not going to leave the hospital. Her hospital was not the Gcuwa hospital where journalists could go in any time and get what they wanted. She said she was going to deal with us.

In darkness and under the threat to our lives, we bowed and deleted the pictures.

It was not an easy decision. As journalists we know our boundaries and we know what to publish and what not to.

The level of cruelty, illegality and ferocious entitlement left us with a big question: What do the managers of this hospital have to hide?

We did not go there to take pictures of the patients, or staff but of the crumbling buildings which, according to our source, were hazardous.

It was a tough peace, and we were promised that “our road is safer now” and that we had to leave the area.

We left just a few minutes before 7pm, three hours after our ordeal started.

Yes, we felt lucky to be alive, but that is the risk we were prepared to take in exposing what is wrong in our health facilities.

Provincial health spokesperson Sizwe Kupelo’s responded: “The department wishes to register its grave concerns regarding the manner in which your organisation conducted itself and methods it used in gathering news by compromising the safety of a hospital community and putting at risk even its own employees.

“The department has an open-door policy and has always availed it to reporters for interviews and public scrutiny. Entering our facilities under false pretences cannot be justified.

“Our communication officials are always available to assist the press on all matters affecting the department. It is irresponsible of any reporter to walk into health facilities for purposes that are outside the mandate of the department.

“Only sick people are expected to visit our hospitals at night, for medical care.”