GB
Gary B
Active since Mar 2023
4
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4 reviews5 months ago
Life Wilgeheuwel general ward disaster
My wife recently had an operation at Life Wilgeheuwel, after which it was projected that she would spend a night in high care and then a couple of nights in a general ward before being discharged. All went according to plan until she got out of high care, and so this is not about high care but about care in the general wards. The high care and the surgeons and high care nurses were brilliant, but as brilliant as they were, so poor was the care in the general wards to which my wife was transferred, specifically section 7 and also section 5 to a degree. She landed up in 2 separate general wards because the care in section 7 was so putrid that she landed up back in high care for a few days, before then going to section 5. I saw my wife on the Thursday evening in section 7, and she was physically fine, chatty and aware of her surroundings and knew the visitors she had. The next afternoon when I arrived for visiting, she was completely vegetative, and could not move, talk or even communicate. It was really a case of the lights being on but no-one being home. I asked is she had been sedated and was told this was not the case, and when I asked how long she had been like this I was told that it was "since this morning". I asked why they had not called a doctor, given this huge deterioration in condition, and was met with shrugs and disinterest. I asked them to call a doctor, and they said we would need to wait until the doctor was available. While we were waiting, my wife had a massive seizure in front of us (the violence of the seizure even dislocated her jaw!). I then called the same nurses and they suddenly started running around shouting Code Blue. Then there were doctors running in from ICU and high care. The ICU shouted for a specific drug which I later discovered was used to treat seizures, and the nurses seemed unable to find it. The doctors managed to bring my wife around, and the ICU doctor ran some tests on a machine and told me that it was clear that this was not the first seizure my wife had experienced in the ward. That meant that all the previous ones had gone unnoticed by the useless ward staff. My wife's specialist was then called from home and my wife then had to go for all sorts of tests to check for damaged from the seizures, whereafter she landed up back in high care for 3 days. She was then released to section 5, also a general ward on the Tuesday, with the aim of moving her to another facility of a step down nature. She was accompanied throughout her stay in Wilgeheuwel by a large clear plastic bag which contained her chronic medication, her dental plate and a neck brace that she was required to wear at times. On Tuesday, I twice asked the staff in section 5 (the day shift once and the night shift once) if I could please take this packet as I was worried it would get lost and would not be transferred with her. I was told not to worry, as they would make sure it was not forgotten. At the time of transfer, my wife asked where this packet was, and was told to keep quiet and go with the transfer. When I got to the step down facility, the bag was not there, and the staff in section 5 eventually traced it to a store room at Wilgeheuwel. I asked that they send it across, and was basically told that this was not going to happen, and if I wanted it I needed to come and fetch it, which I then had to do. So I had to drive all the way there and back due to their incompetence and couldn't care less attitude. I have obviously lodged a complaint with Life Healthcare, but to date have been met with lots of shrugs and "eish, sorry", and "we are sorry" types of responses, none of which deal with the underlying issue of the poor service. It seems that the attitude is just to do as little as possible not to get fired, and then walk around apologising when things go wrong, rather than doing your job properly in the first place so that things do not go wrong. I really hope I never have to land up in a general ward at Life Wilgeheuwel!
0 replies
7 months ago
DSTV - Simply the worst
I have been a subscriber for well over 30 years, and pay by debit order, which is processed on the 4th of each month. This has been the case for all these years, and not one debit order has ever been returned. My next debit order is due to go through on 4 October, but on 1 October I received both an email as well as an SMS telling me that my service had been suspended. Initially I thought it must be a ****, but when I turned on my TV, I saw the error message saying that the services were suspended. The only option then was to go through the excruciating process of phoning their call centre and waiting to speak to someone. To get onto their automated calling system you need to give them your ID number, and then when you get to speak to a consultant, the very first thing they ask you is the same thing. Why ask it twice. In any event, I spoke to Palesa, who could not explain why my service was suspended. To her credit, she only kept me on the line for 10 minutes and then said she would reconnect the services (which she did) and would call me back to tell me why the services were suspended in the first place (which she did not do). Today (3 October) I received two emails telling me that my access to Showmax, which the pointedly say is linked to my dstv subscription and payment of that account, has been "paused". Tomorrow the debt order goes through, so they will then hopefully wake up.....for this month at least! Dealing with dstv is a nightmare, and don't believe what they tell you about using the app to resolve issues. I have had years of problems activating my holiday home subscription on the app, as it sometimes works and most times does not, and so you once again have to phone the call centre, where the consultants say that they are aware of problems with the app. Yet nothing seems to get done about it, except that now and again the app gets updated, and then invariably works even worse. All I read about is how dstv is losing subscribers, and yet they seem intent on alienating and frustrating their dwindling number of remaining subscribers.
0 replies
25 months ago
Powerless in Bakubung
Staying at the resort at the moment, and there has been no power for 48 hours (Tuesday morning to Thursday morning), apart from a brief period of a few hours on Wednesday night. So, no warm showers, no hair dryers for the ladies, no fridges so all the food spoils and one has to go to Reception to charge any electrical devices. If one went camping then one would be prepared to have to rough it but one does not prepare to be totally self-sufficient in terms of electricity at what is supposed to be an upmarket resort. All management says is that they are working on it, but that does not help.
0 replies
38 months ago
Luggage Damage
Safair totally destroyed a suitcase en route from Cape Town to Lanseria on flight FA306 on 1 March. After a cumbersome claims process involving forms and photographs (even though they had seen the damaged suitcase at Lanseria and it was so badly damaged that they could not even put it on the carousel), they apologised but only offered partial compensation as they said "there were other people involved in the baggage handling". So in effect they are penalising me and making me pay for what they say some other person, who was not appointed by me, allegedly did to thye suitcase. I pointed out that these other people were their agents, and that they should go and recover the cost of the suitcase from the guilty party, and not seek to make me, in effect, pay for what these nameless people supposedly did, but they basically shrugged their shoulders. So it is a take it or leave it type of situation, where they admitted to causing the damage and apologised for it, but shied away from proper compensation.
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1 Star
4 (100%)