Hospital horror stories

IT’S so final and dramatic: “Hospital cut off my leg”. ( POST, June 28-July 2). Sounds more like a butcher, a worker at an abattoir or an executioner in the French Revolution, chopping off a man’s head with a guillotine; not professional medical personnel operating on a patient at a hospital.

How could doctors at Inkosi Albert Luthuli Central Hospital, one of the country’s top hospitals, have been so careless to cut off Deon Pillay’s leg for a blood clot? I cannot understand why they would want to amputate a patient’s leg because he complained of pains in his leg. Shouldn’t they have checked and confirmed his diagnosis before rushing him into theatre? Not only did they cut off his leg but (allegedly) left it infected and Deon had to have further treatment at a private hospital. Now his business, his marriage and life are in ruins.

The Department of Health has been in the news lately over its lack of treatment for cancer patients. There are no oncologists left in Durban’s public hospitals and radiotherapy machines lie, broken. No-one has taken the responsibility to have these expensive machines repaired.

Yet the Department of Health is headed by a medical professional, Dr Sibongiseni Dhlomo who, apparently, was unaware of the problems in state hospitals and was absolved of all liability for the mess-up in his department.

Deon is suing the department for R13 million for negligence. If he wins it will be some consolation. But it won’t bring back his leg. How many other operations are botched up at state hospitals and go unreported? Patients at state hospitals are being treated like cattle at abattoirs.

THYAGARAJ MARKANDAN

Silverglen