Sipokazi Maposa
March 19 2009 at 12:27PM
A one-year-old baby has died in Nyanga after apparently being turned away by at least three health centres in the area.Unabantu Mali died while being carried on his grandmother's back during their two-hour walk home.His distraught family, who were left with no choice but to take the sickly child home, are now blaming the "slack and unprofessional" conduct of staff at the Nyanga clinic, the Guguletu Community Health Centre (CHC) and Guguletu Maternity Obstetrics Unit (MOU) for Unabantu's death. He had been taken to the hospitals following prolonged vomiting and diarrhoea on Tuesday.
'After waiting for more than an hour we decided to leave for KTC'The family told the Cape Argus that the drama that led to Unabantu's death happened less than a week after he had been discharged from Red Cross Children's Hospital last Wednesday, where he was treated for gastroenteritis. The family was given a letter about his condition and told to take him to a local medical facility should the symptoms come back.
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On Wednesday his 17-year-old mother, Nonceba Mali, was too distraught to speak at length to the Cape Argus and could only say that "what happened to my son was unacceptable" and if the family had been able to afford to take Unabantu back to Red Cross or a private doctor, "he would probably still be alive today".According to the child's grandmother, Ntombizodwa Mali, who took him to the health centres, the service was so bad that even her pleas to staff to assist them and the Red Cross referral letter to nurses made no difference. She said she and her relative, Linda Booi, were first turned away at Nyanga clinic just after 9am on Tuesday. There they were first told by a clerk that the facility could not help Unabantu as they had reached their quota of children for the day.
'I still feel that the hospital staff didn't care enough'Mali said that after insisting on seeing a nurse, the clerk told them to go to a unit that dealt with small babies. There a nurse allegedly refused to even look at the boy or the hospital letter and referred the women to another section."There were so many people in front of us. They told us that their folders were with the doctor already and they were now queueing to see him. We sat there for a while and realised that we didn't have a folder and therefore might not get help after all. After waiting for more than an hour we decided to leave for KTC," she said.The family then walked to the KTC hospital, formally known as Guguletu MOU, but were again turned away by security staff who said the facility no longer offered services to sick children. The security guard then referred them to Guguletu CHC. By then little Unabantu was so weak that his grandmother decided to see for herself if the facility was closed to sick children. Inside they met a receptionist, who allegedly responded rudely to them, saying that she was not there to answer "meaningless questions, but to help people with their folders".They then left and, according to Booi, arrived at Guguletu CHC just before 11am. There they spoke to a clerk who was shown the now very weak Unabantu. She told them to sit and wait their turn."She was not as rude as the other one in KTC, but then she got very snappy with me when I went to remind her that the child was getting sicker and that his voice had gone faint. She ordered me back to the bench, telling me that she hadn't forgotten about us."After waiting for more than two hours, at around 1pm, the clerk then told us and about five other mothers that were in the queue that we must go home and come back the following day. The reason was that nurses had seen enough children for the day," said Mali.She said they only got to their Nyanga home two hours later as they were forced to walk because they could not afford taxi fare.They only realised that Unabantu was dead when Mali took him off her back to feed him. The unemployed Mali said she regretted taking her grandchild to any of the health facilities, but said she didn't have much choice as she couldn't afford to take him to a private doctor or back to Red Cross."I still feel that the hospital staff didn't care enough, even though they could see that the child was really sick - Even when I showed the clerks how ill he was, they didn't care. If I had money I would have taken him to Red Cross - maybe he would still be alive today."Department of Health spokesperson Mark van der Heever said they had launched an investigation into the matter, but still had not received any formal or verbal complaint from the family.He said that as part of a diarrhoeal disease plan and to alleviate pressure at CHCs, children under the age of 13 were to be treated at community clinics to ensure quicker access to treatment. The head of City Health, Dr Ivan Bromfield, said the city's sub-district manager who had followed up the complaint had found no record of Mali's visit. He said the city's policy didn't allow staff to turn very sick patients away.
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