Durban - A North Coast family is at risk of contracting TB because their daughter has been sent home without medicine to wait until a bed could be found for her at a specialist TB hospital in Durban.
Mandeni resident, Mandlendoda Zulu, said his daughter Phindile, 29, was diagnosed on Wednesday with the multi-drug resistant (MDR) TB at Sundumbili clinic and sent home.
“I was shocked to see her arriving home in the afternoon, and she was weak and coughing. She told us she was sent home to wait for the availability of a bed at King George (now renamed King Dinuzulu) Hospital as she had MDR. She is my daughter but she is not supposed to be here with us. She should be in a place where she can get treatment,” Zulu said.
“I know how dangerous this kind of TB is. We stay in a tiny two-bedroom house, my wife and four children. When I sent my daughter to the clinic I expected the nurses to help her. Now she is weak, throwing up when she eats and she has no medication,” Zulu said.
He said he feared for his family as their tiny house did not have sufficient ventilation.
“They could have at least given my child some medication while waiting for a bed at the hospital. It pains me watching her having difficulty to breathe with no medication to take,” he said.
An employee at the clinic, who commented on condition of anonymity, said she was aware of the “patient” and did not understand why she was not given medication or referred to another facility.
“This is a serious case because the patient is not supposed to share a bed with people and there should be sufficient ventilation wherever she is.
“The sister in charge of the TB section drafted a report and handed it to the CEO who then sent it to the provincial office,” the employee said.
A medical doctor, who asked to remain anonymous, said the clinic had been negligent in its handling of the case.
“The (woman) was not supposed to have been sent home. The nurse who did this obviously doesn’t know protocol because the patient should have been referred to King George or Katherine Booth, which also has the facility and GeneXPert machines to test MDR/XDR TB. A tracker team should be sent to her home immediately to test the entire family for these TB strains,” the doctor said.
KwaZulu-Natal Department of Health spokesman, Sam Mkhwanazi, said the department was expected to have taken the woman to a health facility on Thursday.
“We are looking into allegations that the patient was sent back home without receiving treatment or being referred accordingly,” Mkhwanazi said.
He said if the allegations were true, such conduct “would be undermining the efforts of the department to reduce the quadruple burden of diseases (among others HIV, Aids and TB)”.
Daily News