Pretoria - A Sunnyside family have been dealt a cruel blow which has seen them keep vigil by their dying mother’s bedside.
This comes just as they thought they could get intervention after two weeks of Tryphina Mkwe’s deteriorating health, lack of treatment and claims she was assaulted.
The family was informed early on Sunday morning that there was nothing that could be done for the 52-year-old woman initially admitted for an investigation into jaundice.
“But on Sunday they said she was dying of cancer and had kidney failure and because it was all so delicate they could not treat her,” daughter Enika Pitso said.
She said the shock of it all threatened to cripple the family, who, until last Friday, had been dealing with Mkwe’s obvious lack of improvement during a two-week stay at Steve Biko Hospital.
She had been admitted on April 26, 2016 for jaundice with a laparotomy scheduled for two days later. But in that period she had become too weak for surgery.
“I am talking here of a woman who walked into hospital alive and well, but who suddenly got so sick she could hardly eat.”
In a week Mkwe could not get out of bed, suffered severe vomiting and diarrhoea: “She had lost weight and could not eat or drink,” Pitso said. And just as Pitso made calls to meet medical staff to find out what the problem really was, her desperate mother called and asked to be released from the hospital immediately.
“She said she had been verbally abused and physically assaulted the previous night when she fell on her knees while trying to go to the bathroom.”
She said she had been called lazy and told to stop acting like a child. When Pitso contacted management, they were shocked and promised an investigation.
Management also expressed concern over the fact that Mkwe was not receiving treatment or food. “We were told that student doctors who saw her every day had not mentioned these issues nor had they said she was severely sick.”
But when that night the nurses told her mother they would not be intimidated, Pitso called the police in: “I could not walk out and leave her at the mercy of nurses who threatened to do what they wanted to my mother,” she said.
The quality assurance officers called her in on Friday and told her they would no longer be investigating the claims. “They said I could call in the police, bring in my lawyer or go to the office of the health minister if I wanted; they were closing the file.”
Health Department spokesman Steve Mabona said they were concerned about the allegations. “Our priority is to our patients and all our health professionals are always reminded of the same,” he said.
Pitso said on Monday that as a family they were finding it hard to deal with the pain and suffering her mother had endured during the last few weeks. “And then this!”
Only three weeks ago her mother was going about her life normally. She went into hospital for surgery but started on a steady downward spiral. “We are hurting; this is too painful to understand or accept.”
Pitso asked why nurses neglected her and allowed her to “die” slowly while in their care.