Staff at a Belhar medical clinic were so intent on testing and treating four-year-old Roshni Alexander for tuberculosis they failed to pick up the symptoms of diabetes.
Now Roshni’s mother Rochelle Kiewiets - who herself suffers from Multi Drug Resistant (MDR) tuberculosis - has lodged a malpractice complaint against staff at the St Vincent Clinic, accusing them of discrimination and stigmatising the disease.
Kiewiets claims that despite her child having diabetes symptoms, the clinic staff never screened her for it or other ailments. She said even though Roshni had been on TB prophylaxis for the past year, the nurses repeatedly insisted on testing her for TB.
After taking her to the City of Cape Town clinic several times, Kiewiets said Roshni’s condition got worse and she was eventually admitted to Tygerberg Hospital where she was correctly diagnosed and treated for diabetes. But the city has denied discriminating against the mother and daughter.
Charles Cooper, city spokesman, said: “There is no discrimination against patients with specific illnesses - all patients receive the same level of care.”
Kiewiets accused nurses of being “negligent”, saying the hospitalisation of her daughter could have been avoided if nurses had acted earlier.
“It doesn’t matter what I told them (nurses)… they wouldn’t screen her for anything else, but they kept on looking for TB. I went to the clinic three times and I told them that Roshni was sick and progressively losing weight, that she was always very thirsty and had sunken eyes, but the nurses said there was nothing to worry about and that Roshni is fine,” she said.
Only after being admitted to Delft Emergency Unit was Roshni properly screened and transferred to Tygerberg Hospital, where she was diagnosed with diabetes.
Cooper denied that the nurses did not screen Roshni properly. - Cape Argus