TWO elderly women have died – four days apart. Now their families are demanding answers from staff at Edenvale hospital.
|||Two elderly women have died – four days apart. Now their families are demanding answers from staff at Edenvale hospital.
On Wednesday evening, Lindiwe Gumede of Lombardy West, watched helplessly as her mother Nomazizi Mzozoyana, 69, groaned from the pain wracking her body. At 3am on Thursday, her mother died.
On that Wednesday, Mzozoyana had been taken by family friend Eric Molefe to the Alexandra Clinic after she complained of feeling unwell. Gumede was not a home at the time.
“When we arrived at the clinic Gogo was not offered help immediately. She began vomiting and was given a plastic bag to vomit in. A student nurse who identified herself as Elizabeth attended Gogo about an hour and a half later,” he said.
They were given a referral letter by a “Dr Selepe” who instructed that Mzozoyana be taken to the Edenvale hospital on Friday.
When her condition worsened on Wednesday night, Gumede called Molefe and the two took her mother straight to Edenvale.
“A male nurse took the refferal letter and gave it to a Dr Breedt. She did not bother to examine Gogo but rather told us to come back on the date written on the letter (which was dated March 2),” Molefe said.
When Gumede asked the doctor for something to ease Mzozoyana’s pain, she allegedly refused.
They returned home and two hours later Mzozoyana was dead.
“Perhaps if they had bothered to check her that very night my mother would still be alive. Even if she didn’t make it then, I would have taken comfort in the fact that they tried. But they did nothing. We will definitely be taking this up with the hospital. It is unacceptable,” said Gumede.
Molefe said what frustrated him was that the hospital only had a few patients that morning and that Mzozoyana could have been treated instead of being summarily sent home.
In another incident at Edenvale hospital, another elderly woman from Alexandra township died after she was allegedly given the wrong medication.
According to her grandson, Ezekiel Chuma his grandmother, Freda Mamabolo who suffered from arthritis and underwent treatment at the hospital, had a severe nose bleed on February 14.
“I took her to the hospital. Upon examining her a doctor prescribed antibiotics for her. She took them for about two days or so, but began feeling sick. Her eyes were swollen and she developed a rash. I then took her back to the hospital. When we arrived we were told her body was resistant to the antibiotics and she was given allergy pills.”
His grandmother’s condition deteriorated to the point where an ambulance was called to fetch her as she was unable to walk. He said she had developed big sores and her skin looked as though it was burnt.
When they arrived at the hospital he was told his grandmother suffered from Stevens-Johnson Syndrome.
This is known to be a life-threatening skin condition in which cell death causes epidermis to separate from the dermis. The syndrome is usually thought to be a hypersensitivity complex that affects the skin and the mucous membranes. The man said his grandmother had never been diagnosed with the condition before.
“We knew all along that she suffered from arthritis. Health problems for my grandmother began when she was given the antibiotics. She was never the same afterwards,” he said.
Mamabolo died on February 26. An autopsy conducted after the woman’s death stated however that she died from natural causes.
Edenvale hospital has been marred by various complaints, ranging from bad behaviour of nurses and some of the staff to allegations of negligence.
Last year, a Joburg mother launched a R5 million civil claim against Gauteng Premier Nomvula Mokonyane after her son was left with cerebral palsy due to her being allegedly abused and mistreated by staff at the hospital.
The incident happened when her son was born at the hospital in 2006.
“We are looking to lodge a complaint against the hospital. We have answers that still need to be answered,” Chuma said.
Efforts to obtain comment from the Department of Health and from the hospital proved fruitless. - Noni Mokati