A male nurse is alleged to have asked a patient, with blood pressure complications, to loosen her trousers and remove her bra. The incident took place at the Inspingo JMH Hospital in Durban.
After the weird request, the 32-year old male nurse then unzipped his trousers and rubbed his private parts against the face of the patient. The nurse worked in the occupational medicine center of the hospital.
The manager of the hospital, Dharmendra Parekh, confirmed that the nurse was placed under suspension pending an investigation into the matter. Parekh claimed he had a face-to-face with the family of the 22-year old patient the day after the alleged sexual harassment. The family reported the incident to the police.
The mother of the assaulted woman was completely shocked by the incident. “When she told me what had happened to her, I was in shock and could not sleep that night. I only told my son what had happened the following morning and he insisted we notify the hospital and the police.”
The family reportedly knew the nurse as he had treated their older daughter some time back.
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“At the time, she had applied for a job overseas and needed to undergo a medical examination. So when my younger daughter got accepted to work overseas, she was also asked to undergo the same tests and went to the same hospital.”
The incident happened on April 2. The nurse reportedly asked the mother not to go to the hospital that day as he would be attending to the daughter most of the day.
“By 1 pm her blood work had been completed by a female nurse and my daughter was then left in the care of the male nurse. He said he needed to test her blood pressure and when he was done, he told my daughter it was high and he needed to bring it down.”
According to the mother, the nurse called a doctor who allegedly instructed him to ask the patient to remove her bra and loosen her pants.
“The nurse then told her she could not use her phone and made her switch it off.” The mother also claimed the nurse unzipped his pants, forced her daughter to touch his genitals and then rubbed them against her face.
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“My daughter said she was afraid to scream, for fear that he would inject her with medication that would make her drowsy.”
The daughter had not yet gotten home by 6 p.m., so her mother started fearing something had happened. And, since she was unreachable on the phone, the mother went to the hospital to check on her.
She found her daughter and the nurse in the reception area of the hospital.
“My daughter looked troubled. When we began talking, the nurse interrupted and said he would walk us out.”
The nurse also said that the daughter should return the following day for further testing.
“When we got home, I asked her why her cell phone was off and why the examination had taken so long. That’s when she told me what had happened. She was so distraught she could barely speak.”
A lady claiming to be the nurse’s wife picked the phone when the accused was contacted. She insisted that the husband was not around and, unsurprisingly, refused to comment on the issue of the alleged sexual harassment.
Police spokesperson Captain Nqobile Gwala said a case of sexual assault had been opened at the Isipingo SAPS and that a 32-year-old man had been arrested
The nurse will appear before the Magistrates Court in uMlazi on Friday.
