'We buried our child without knowing what killed him'

File picture: Etienne Creux/Independent Media

File picture: Etienne Creux/Independent Media

Published Feb 22, 2017

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Durban – More than two months after their son was kept overnight in a Phoenix mortuary after a car accident only to die in hospital the next day, the Mkhize family of KwaMashu say they have not found closure.

They have now enlisted the services of a lawyer to handle the matter in “any appropriate manner for the Health Department to own up to its negligence”.

On December 5, Msizi Mkhize, 28, was knocked down by a car while walking home with a friend.

The Daily News reported at the time that paramedics declared him dead at the scene and took him to the mortuary.

The next day, when the family went to identify and process documentation on Mkhize’s death, they were told that he had been found alive in the refrigerator.

On Tuesday, the family said the Health Department had shown no urgency in resolving the case.

“We buried our child not knowing what exactly killed him. He was knocked down by a car, but survived the entire night in the mortuary fridge,” Mkhize’s mother, Mduduzile, said on Tuesday.

“It was in the afternoon of the next day that they discovered he was still alive, and rushed him to Mahatma Gandhi Hospital where he died about five hours later."

“Is it not clear that something went wrong with the paramedics who found him at the scene? The department should explain to us how my child landed in a morgue and later in hospital. When we requested a medical record, we could not get it. We don’t know why,” she said.

Mduduzile said when department officials arrived at her home days after her son’s death, they were defensive when the family sought an explanation.

“They said he didn’t die as a result of the night in the morgue. They left saying they would return with an explanation. We are still waiting. We approached a lawyer who gave us a date to return to him later this week,” she said.

The driver of the vehicle has not been arrested.

Colonel Thembeka Mbele, provincial police spokesperson, said the prosecutor could only take a decision to prosecute once the post-mortem report was finalised, which took time.

“Once the report becomes available, it is handed to the investigator who then takes the docket to the prosecutor for a decision,” she said.

Dr Sifiso Mtshali, Health Department head, denied that his department had not been in contact with the Mkhize family.

He said he would today provide details of meetings they had with the family.

Daily News

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