Pretoria - A Pretoria east woman who is embroiled in a legal tussle with her uncle over the care of her severely ill father, pleaded with the high court in Pretoria to place the man under her care, as she knows better how to take care of him.
“Should the patient not be removed from the care of the respondent (her uncle) he might die and I am not ready to lose my beloved father in the hands of someone who knows nothing about taking care of him,” the woman said in court papers.
The parties are not named as the uncle had not yet answered to the allegations against him.
The applicant is the biological daughter of the patient, who she said, was simply removed from hospital by her uncle.
She has now obtained an urgent court order in terms of which the uncle immediately had to hand over the patient to her.
The sheriff was also ordered to, with the assistance of police, remove the patient from the home of the uncle and to place him in the care of the applicant.
Her father was admitted to hospital with severe meningitis last month. The hospital said it could no longer care for him and he had to be discharged.
The woman said two weeks ago she received training on how to care for her father and she was ready to take him home.
Her uncle, however, out of the blue pitched up at the hospital and took her father to his home. The staff tried to intervene, she said, but her uncle was adamant.
“I had prepared a room at my home and employed a helper to assist with taking care of my father.
“The helper underwent the same training as I did and knows how to take care of my father. My medically boarded aunt, a nurse, also agreed to help take care of him.”
The applicant said she had resigned from her work and would be working from home for her fiancé, so that she could take care of her father.
According to her, her uncle did not have the interest and well-being of her father at heart, stating that he was only interested in the patient’s money. “It is my fear that (my father) will be neglected and not receive proper care, as the respondent does not know how to take care of him…
“The matter is extremely urgent because if he does not immediately receive proper care, my father may die.”
She explained her father had to be fed by way of a tube inserted into his stomach, which had to be turned daily to avoid his intestines attaching to it.
Her uncle had no idea how to cope with this, she said.
The woman added that she had earlier asked the police to assist her in removing her father from her uncle’s home, but they refused and said they would not interfere in family matters.
“I have no choice but to turn to the court for help,” she told Judge Wendy Hughes.
The uncle was not present in court nor did he state his side of the story.
Pretoria News