Pretoria - Tears rolled down the boy’s face and were gently wiped away by his grandmother, as the two sat in the kitchen of their home and recounted the recent six-week horror after his medical circumcision went horribly wrong.
The boy was been temporarily overcome by emotion as he spoke about the intense pain he been through over the duration of four weeks, after sepsis set in and was not properly managed by the local doctor in whose rooms he had been circumcised.
The 12 year-old, who cannot be named due to the sensitivity of the matter, and his mother went to the rooms of Dr Lindiwe Shange in Atteridgeville for the “cut” at the beginning of July, and when he went back for his seven day check-up he was told that he was recovering very well. But pain set in a few days after: “I started feeling discomfort and pain in general, but when I tried to urinate it felt like my penis was on fire,” he said.
His mother took him back to the doctor’s rooms, where he was treated and sent home with a bandage, and instructions not to remove it until he came back seven days later, for a check-up.
The pain intensified, leading to him being hospitalised only two days after that visit.
He was admitted and treated for sepsis on his penis.
On Wednesday, he recounted the numbing pain of those first few days, and said: “I was in constant pain from which I could not escape, so much more pain that I could ever have imagined.”
His grandmother added: “Nurses would tell me he would cry and beg them for pain medication throughout the day.”
She said her visits to the hospital were very difficult, the feelings of helplessness overwhelming as she watched him go through agony.
She explained how she had been taking care of all his growing pains and difficulties all his life. “This time I could do nothing, not from the time he would scream out and beg me to help after the pain started here at home, and not when I found him in a state in the hospital.”
Doctors at Kalafong Hospital put the Grade 7 pupil into theatre twice during his four-week stay, and upon his discharge last weekend, they pronounced him healed of the infection.
At a check-up on Wednesday morning they told his grandmother that he was mending beautifully. “They examined him, prodded and asked questions on pain, blood in his urine and other issues, after which they said they were very happy with his condition.”