Worried family seek mentally disabled man
Patient missing after being dropped off at hospital
AMENTALLY disabled man has vanished without trace after he was allegedly forgotten at the Provincial Hospital by a Department of Health patient transport driver. Wandile Nyanya, 55, from Port Alfred, got onto the patient transport bus on December 11 and was dropped off at Provincial Hospital.
Nyanya, however, never made it to his doctor’s appointment, nor did he return home.
He was scheduled to see an ear, nose and throat specialist.
“We are not eating or sleeping. I am so worried,” Nyanya’s sister, Lisa Stanley, 42, said yesterday.
When she realised he had not returned home, she reported him missing at the Port Alfred police station.
The case was then transferred to the Mount Road police station in Port Elizabeth for investigation.
Marcia Williams, who is trying to help the family find Nyanya, said she did not believe he would be able to ask for help or find his way home.
Williams confirmed that Nyanya had been picked up by the Department of Health’s patient transport vehicle in Port Alfred on December 11.
There are no records that his file was ever drawn at Provincial Hospital or that he kept his appointment at the ear, nose and throat clinic that day.
“My fear is that he has been beaten up and is lying somewhere or worse, that he was killed,” Williams said.
“We have asked the police to look in the mortuaries.
“All I know is that he was dropped off there.”
William said she had not been able to find out much more as she had been sent from pillar to post by the Department of Health.
She said the driver of the patient transport vehicle had told them that he had directed Nyanya to the ear, nose and throat clinic. “He is mentally challenged and speaks very little,” Williams said. “He could be anywhere by now.” According to the police report filed by his family, Nyanya was wearing a brand new grey hoodie, blue Levi jeans, brown Green Cross shoes, a black fleece beanie and was carrying a blue lunch box with him as well as his patient file when he went missing. He has three scars on his face. Stanley, with whom Nyanya lives, said: “He had to see the doctor at Provincial Hospital.
“I asked one of the other patients to go with him but when I went to fetch him on the evening of December 11, he wasn’t there.
“The man who went with him said he might be on the later bus.” She said Nyanya was a little slow. “He can work. He does little jobs but he forgets quickly,” Stanley said.
“He has a type of amnesia. He won’t make it by himself.”
Stanley said she was rallying numerous family members to travel to Nelson Mandela Bay and go to all the hospitals. “Maybe he was injured,” she said. Health spokesman Sizwe Kupelo said patients like Nyanya should be always be accompanied by an escort.
He said the department was investigating what had happened.
Police spokeswoman captain Sandra Janse van Rensburg confirmed that police were looking for Nyanya.