Cape Town - A mother's quest to find the body of one of her twin babies three months after giving birth has yielded no results.
Fatimah Rademeyer’s trauma over the past three months has been exacerbated, she says, as the Health Department has denied she gave birth to twins.
Rademeyer returned home with only one of her twin boys after going into labour on February 23.
“I was booked at False Bay Hospital. After going into labour, I was transferred to Mowbray Maternity Hospital as the medical staff there confirmed one of the twins had already breached.
“When I got to Mowbray hospital, they did another scan before rushing me to do a C-section,” Rademeyer said.
During labour, her eyes were covered with a blue plastic bag, Rademeyer said.
“The doctor who came in said they had to close my eyes because they didn't want me to see the blood and risk me going into a panic attack,” she said.
Rademeyer, a mother of three, said this was her first C-section birth.
According to Rademeyer, both babies were to be boys.
“When they showed the baby to me after birth, it was a fat baby, but when I returned to the ward the baby behind the glass window was small in comparison to the one I first saw,” she
said.
Rademeyer said while in hospital for four days after birth for observation, a nurse administering pain tablets looked at her folder and said “sorry for your loss”.
“This really confused me a lot and it has been a really traumatic experience. Even when I went for a check-up at False Bay hospital, the woman who works at reception asked me, ‘aren’t you the one with the twins?’
"I explained to her what happened,” Rademeyer said.
“I want to know where my child’s body is if he died during labour. This is too much, I want closure. I want his body and a death certificate,” she pleaded.
Provincial Health Department spokesperson Bianca Carls said Rademeyer booked at False Bay Hospital at 31 weeks' pregnant on December 12.
“She defaulted subsequent follow-up, and only visited the hospital on February 23 in spontaneous labour,” Carls said.
She said Rademeyer was transferred to Mowbray Maternity Hospital after “a possible twin pregnancy was queried on ultrasound”.
“On admission to Mowbray Maternity Hospital, only a single foetal heartbeat was detected, and the heart rate tracing indicated that the baby was in distress,” Carls said.
She confirmed an emergency C-section was then conducted on February 24.
“A single baby boy weighing (3kg) was delivered. No second baby, alive or otherwise, was present,” Carls said.