Pretoria - The Lotus Gardens family of Yonela Motsoaneng, the girl who died at Kalafong Hospital on Wednesday morning, were dealt a blow when they discovered that the post-mortem they were promised had not been done by Thursday.
This, they said, stretched the pain and suffering they felt from not knowing how the girl had died. Doctors had assured them the cause of death would be revealed by Thursday after the autopsy in the morning.
The 13-year-old girl’s father, DA councillor Simon Motsoaneng, accompanied by the undertaker, arrived at the hospital in the afternoon to fetch the body of his daughter.
“I was hoping to get the results… but was told there were none,” he said.
Motsoaneng and Yonela’s mother, Priscilla Motsoaneng, said they needed to know the reasons for the death of their child if they were to find closure. They said that while it would not bring her back, it would help them in the healing process. “It will also clear up the mess around her death,” her mother said.
The grieving mother spoke to the Pretoria News a few hours after learning of the death and having spent some time with the body of her daughter on Wednesday. She said she, together with other family members, were baffled by the circumstances leading to her death.
The girl had undergone two operations at the hands of Kalafong doctors within the space of a week, but no clear reasons for either had been given. The first operation was done two weeks ago after she had complained of abdominal pain.
After tests had been run and ultra sound scans done, doctors said they could not find the cause, but would remove her appendix anyway.
“We trusted them because they are professionals, and let them go ahead even though the reasons were not clear,” Motsoaneng said.
Yonela was discharged the following day, but four days later the wound had started oozing a liquid described by her mother as dirty in colour and with a bad odour.
They took her back to hospital where doctors again asked to operate after a few days of treatment, leaving the little girl with two horizontal scars running parallel to each other and to the right of her lower abdomen. When her mother spoke to her on the phone on Tuesday afternoon as she made her way to the hospital Yonela was chatty and seemed fine. But when she arrived she found doctors and nurses around the bed, and her daughter vomiting severely and weak.
The parents left the hospital at around midnight, after Yonela had calmed down and was sleeping. The hospital called them after 5am on Wednesday to tell them she had died, throwing the family into confusion and anguish and wondering how that had happened.
Doctors said they did not know what she had died from. They gave Motsoaneng a form to fill in, requesting an autopsy, and assured him the results would be out late afternoon on Thursday.
“I need to bury my daughter this weekend and cannot understand why they would deliberately delay this,” he said.
The Health Department said it would intervene and find out how and why the promises were made, but could not give answers on Thursday on the incident.
Pretoria News