Social services’ idea of ‘within 90 days’ inaccurate and harmful

PLEASE may I ask members of the press and the public what is meant by the word “within”?

The South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) has twice turned away a young woman whom I’ve been helping for more than 20 years, who desperately needs a disability pension.

The letter she was given on the first visit said that she should return to reapply within 90 days if she and/or her helper were aggrieved by (ie unhappy with) the decision.

I sent her back with another list of her ailments that have required innumerable visits to McCord, Addington, King Edward VIII, King Dinuzulu Psychiatric and Dental Departments, IALCH, private general practitioners, private dentists and endless government clinic visits.

At Addington they said if we wanted more than three pages of her visits for herself and her children they would have to “fish” for them on fiche. They would find reams of entries for her visits.

The point that needs to be clarified is whether I am right in thinking and saying that within 90 days means that one can go back any day from the day of first being seen and up and until the 90 days are over, without taking any new documents?

She has now twice been told that within 90 days means that she cannot return until the 90 days are over. This does not comply with the dictionary definition of within as being during or on the inside of 90 days.

She gets high blood pressure, anaphylactic shock, hay fever, asthma, dental abscesses, frequent ear, throat and chest infections, heavy periods (due to fibroids) that leave her anaemic and weak, headaches, dizziness and depression.

Surely Sassa does not want her to send me messages saying ”Please help starving” every day until I send money from my pension, when I was the one who tried to get her educated and employed, and her health problems have prevented that from happening.

They say that all her ailments can be treated by visits to the above hospitals and clinics, but don’t realise that most employers can’t let a sickly person take time off work every few days, so she soon gets dismissed and her mother and I must help.

RN STAPERSMA (Retired nurse)

Bellair