A desperate plea for help
Authorities vow to step in after ...
Their cries for help were not answered, so a community desperate to assist a Motherwell woman so emaciated that she cannot get out of bed, decided to share a series of graphic photographs to bring the public’s attention to her shocking state.
At just 31, Andy (not her real name) is unable to bathe herself and spends most of her days on a mattress on the pavement in front of her NU10 home in the Gqeberha township.
She is so thin that her bones ache. She is also HIV-positive and was recently diagnosed with TB.
Without a nutritious diet, she will continue to wither away.
Andy is only one of 20-million South Africans who go to bed hungry each night, meaning that about one in three people in the country are starving.
She lives in a household with four other people who all rely on her elderly father’s pension of R1,880 a month and the R450 Andy’s younger sister receives in support of her twoyear-old son.
They run out of money for food halfway through the month.
Sometimes neighbours chip in to assist, but most nights they go to bed hungry.
Andy’s neighbours have been trying to get her help, but to no avail.
That is why this week they stepped up their campaign by releasing on WhatsApp graphic photographs of her condition.
The images also came into the possession of The Herald, which informed government authorities and welfare organisations about her condition.
The result is that some help is finally on the way.
By yesterday afternoon, humanitarian foundation Gift of the Givers and the provincial Sassa office had pledged assistance, with the hope that more organisations will follow.
Eastern Cape social development department spokesperson Mzukisi Solani said the department would first need to establish a household profile to get a full picture of the situation at Andy’s home.
“This will help us [decide on] the best intervention.
“We have also referred the matter to Sassa for their own possible interventions,” Solani said.
Provincial Sassa spokesperson Luzuko Qina said they had since made contact with Andy to arrange a disability grant.
“In this regard, Sassa has booked her to be seen by a Sassa doctor for an assessment.
“Equally, the district social development office has taken an application for her to receive a social relief of distress grant in the form of food parcels. Sassa appreciates being informed about people who are in need of its services as a body duly mandated to deliver social security services,” Qina said.
Gift of the Givers Eastern Cape project manager Corene Conradie, when told of Andy’s plight, pledged to deliver food supplies to Andy and her family.
“We will give them food for two months on Monday and from there we will donate food to last them for at least another two months,” Conradie said.
“People are struggling. In our meeting with social development they asked us for advice.
“People are hungry, there are masks for Covid-19 and there are vitamins, but there is no personal protective equipment for hunger.”
Ward 55 councillor Ntombizodwa Nyati similarly promised to assist the woman and her family.
Nyati yesterday made contact with Andy’s concerned neighbour, Nondyebo Matini, who took the heart-wrenching photos.
Nyati said before yesterday, she was unaware of what had been happening.
Matini, 62, was pleased to learn that the photographs had shocked the authorities into action.
The images are undeniably shocking, showing Andy’s emaciated legs and arms, and her patchy hair.
Her skin is peeling and mottled.
When a Herald team visited Andy at her home in Motherwell this week, she was lying on a mattress next to the front door.
Matini explained that each morning she was carried outside on a blanket and placed on the mattress in the sun to get warm.
If she became too hot, they would move her to the shade.
That was how she spent most of her days before being carried indoors when night fell.
Andy first became ill in December last year.
“I have been bedridden since December,” she said, explaining that one morning her feet had become so sore, she was unable to stand.
She was later diagnosed with TB and HIV.
“Since [then], I have only [become] worse.
“My body is heavy and sore, mostly my back is sore, my legs and feet are swollen,” Andy said.
Andy gave permission for her HIV-status and her identity to be disclosed.
However, The Herald felt that it would be in her best interests to protect her identity.
At times when speaking, she bites down on her lip in agony.
She said the quality of her skin started to deteriorate in March.
“The doctor at the clinic told me that they were going to book an appointment for me with a skin doctor.
“However, it is very hard at home.
“My father had a stroke and no-one is working at home, so we live off my father’s old age grant,” she said, explaining why it was so difficult for her to get to the clinic for treatment.
“I want to get off this mattress so I can get a job to help support my family. It hurts me
‘People are hungry, there are masks for Covid-19 and there are vitamins, but there is no personal protective equipment for hunger’
and makes me cry to know he [father] is not well but he has to take care of me too,” the woman said.
Matini helps care for Andy. She tries to bathe her as often as possible. But this also hurts the younger woman.
“We cannot pick her up from under her armpits because her skin is sore, we have to carry her with a blanket to the mattress outside.
“She feels pain when we bathe her. I do not know if the water hurts her when it’s running on her cracked skin.”
Andy’s younger sister also helps care for her.
Because this had become a 24-hour-a-day job, on top of caring for her own child, the young woman was unable to find permanent employment and had to settle for odd jobs like doing people’s laundry.
On these occasions, she was unable to keep a close watch on her sister and sometimes she would return home to the distraught woman, lying in her own faeces.
“It is traumatic having to see her moaning when in pain, we all cry with her.
“We [need] the department of social development to help this family where they can,” Matini said.
Andy’s sister, 25, said: “I wash my sister, but the things we need to treat her skin are costly.”
She said they hoped to take her to Dora Nginza Hospital on June 3 for a skin appointment.
Their 61-year-old father broke down when speaking about his daughter’s condition.
He said it was financially draining on him to take care of his family while he still needed to make payments on his funeral policy and buy other necessities like clothes.
“I battle to sleep when I hear her moaning at night and I do not have any pain tablets to help her,” the man said.