Bid to seize assets after botched op

A LUSIKISIKI man who walked around for three years with surgical instruments in his stomach is stillwaiting for a R250 000 payout from the Eastern Cape health department.

Now he is moving to seize department of health assets to pay.

The Mthatha High Court ruled on February 25 that the department pay Wandile Myolwa an initial amount for “loss of income and medical costs due to medical negligence” after he won a lawsuit.

Myolwa, from Qaukeni village, instituted a R8-million civil claim against the department and Nelson Mandela Central Hospital in 2010 after a pair of babcock forceps and bulldog clamp were left inside his body after surgery.

Babcock forceps are described as large tweezers – a handheld, hinged instrument used for grasping and holding small objects when fingers are too large.

Bulldog clamps are used to flow.

Myolwa was admitted to the Mthathabased hospital for surgery in 2007 with a stab wound in his stomach from trying to stop a fight between two friends.

Myolwa’s lawyer Edward Bikitsha yesterday told the Dispatch they were now in the process of attaching assets from the Nelson Mandela Central Hospital after the department and hospital failed to make the interim payment.

“We will be removing them if they don’t pay up,” he added.

“For a long time the department has indicated that it wanted to make an out-ofcourt

stop

blood that.

“In fact, they were meant to make one in December but up until today, nothing.”

Two years ago the Dispatch reported that after being discharged from hospital Myolwa had complained of constant pain in his abdomen.

Contacted for comment yesterday the father of one, who previously worked as labourer for a scrap metal dealer, said he had lost his job because of the injury.

“I have a child and I don’t have a job. Now my mother has to support all of us, including my two older brothers, on her pension money,” he said.

Myolwa said he had lost a lot of weight as he vomited after eating certain kinds of food.

His mother Ntombencinci Myolwa, 55, said her son had changed since his ordeal started. “He can’t even help with chores around the house.

“They [the department] must just pay him so that we can move on with our lives.”

Provincial department of health spokesman Sizwe Kupelo said Bikitsha was to blame and the department was ready to pay.

Kupelo said the problem was that Myolwa was not on the department’s database.

“We have sent them paperwork but they have not sent it back yet.

“We don’t sign out cheques but have a system where we pay out electronically.”

He also claimed the move by Bikitsha to attach some of the hospital’s assets was flawed, adding that the attorney had been advised as such by the state’s lawyer. —

settlement

but

they have not done