Durban - The KwaZulu-Natal Health MEC Nomagugu Simelane-Zulu has called for an urgent and thorough investigation into the death of a 52-year-old male patient who allegedly had maggots coming out of his mouth.
The MEC wants the department to establish circumstances around the patient’s demise and take stringent disciplinary action should any individuals be found guilty of wrong-doing.
In a statement the department said while there were staffing-related challenges which are being attended to, Simelane-Zulu has also called upon all healthcare professionals to discharge their duties with love, care and diligence at all times.
Sadick Ebrahim, 52, had been a patient at RK Khan Hospital since June 19. He died on Tuesday.
His son Azaad Ebrahim made the shocking discovery of maggots in his father's mouth and described it as definite form of negligence on the hospital's part.
In her reaction, the MEC said: “We firstly wish to send our deepest condolences to the family, and we must indicate that as a Department we are quite shocked by the state of the patient (when the video was taken) before he demised. We really don’t understand how things could have got to this level. We are going to conduct a thorough and proper investigation to understand what led to this.
“While we understand that our hospitals are understaffed, and we have a lot of patients that we must look after, we do not believe that it makes sense that a patient would be in our care for so long and yet when he left this world, he leaves in this particular fashion. The reality of it is that it means, while he was under our care, and he had the challenges that he did, he also had an added discomfort of having to deal with the situation that he was faced with. I have requested the acting Head of Department that we should do a thorough investigation.
“We do call on our health professionals in the different hospitals in our province to take our responsibility seriously. While we understand that you are under pressure… and have a lot of work, once a patient is with you, make sure you do a thorough assessment. You must treat that patient as you would treat your own family member because that’s the commitment that we made as professionals.”