Mentally ill Patient Raped in Hospital

A mentally ill teenager has reportedly was reportedly raped by another patient at Professor ZK Matthews Hospital in Barkly West.

A security guard caught a 32 year old man raping the 19 year old in the early hours of Sunday morning, notifying the police right away. He was shortly arrested.

The teen was at the hospital temporarily, as she waited to be referred to a psychiatric hospital. Shortage of beds at West End psychiatric hospital however made her stay here longer than usual.

“We admitted her at Professor ZK Matthews Hospital when she became confused, as she suffers from mental illness. This is the first time that she was admitted into hospital and has been away from home for such a long time,” family members said yesterday.

“However, she has been at the Professor ZK Matthews Hospital for the past 41 days. We do not have a private medical aid and rely on the state for services, so we had no other choice but to wait patiently.

“Following the rape incident, a bed suddenly became available. We were only informed by the hospital about the incident at around 8am on Sunday.”

Speaking about the incident, the girl’s mother said, “She was helpless and unable to defend herself. The social worker said that counselling would be arranged for her. We are hoping that she will be able to return home soon because we are very worried about her after her ordeal. We want the incident to be investigated by the hospital to prevent it from ever happening again.”

The grandmother was tearful, saying that something like this should never be allowed to happen in a hospital.

Lebogang Majaha, the spokesperson for Northern Cape Department of Health MEC said that the delay in the transfer of the patient will form part of the investigations.