A Suva family claims lack of empathy and professionalism by Colonial War Memorial Hospital staff in Suva, resulted in their grandmother’s body being kept in a car for almost two hours outside the emergency department.
Darshni Devi claimed her family was “given attitude” from nurses when they sought assistance for their grandmother’s death to be verified before her body could be taken to the mortuary.
Ms Devi, said the way their grandmother’s issue was handled was undignified.
“My sister, two male cousins and I had brought my dead grandmother in this morning (Monday morning),” Ms Devi said.
“In the span of one hour, my sister had to go into the emergency ward twice just to ask for assistance.
“After one hour of waiting, I went in to ask what the holdup was and that’s when one of the nurses angrily told me’what do you think, we have only one patient to tend to?’, but all we wanted was for one of them to just come out and verify the body so that we could take it to the mortuary.”
In response to queries from The Fiji Times on the issue, Health Ministry permanent secretary Dr James Fong said he was aware of the incident.
He said the CWM Hospital had a surge in cases on Monday and he was waiting for a detailed report before he would comment any further.
