SA govt to investigate hospital tragedy

This is after Yasser Marere wrote a letter of complaint to the health ministry last Friday, in which he accused staff at Coronation Hospital of having ill-treated his pregnant wife, leading to the death of their baby son. Marere alleged in the letter that, after his sons death, he was made to search through 40 dead babies to find the childs body. South Africa Health Minister, Aaron Motsoaledi, early told The Zimbabwean ******* this week that his ministry had launched an investigation into the incident, promising that government would take punitive action if the hospital staff are found to be in the wrong.

We are already in the process of investigating that incident because it shows a clear lack of professionalism and a lack of will by the medical staff to do their job properly, said the minister. Once the offending members are found, we will take proper action against them because we cannot allow such a situation to be repeated in future. We will use them to set an example because our health facilities are there to save lives, not otherwise Motsoaledi dismissed the notion that Mareres plight came about because he was a foreigner.

This was just negligence and had nothing to do with where he came from and we will treat it as such. The investigation will, however, prove if there are such reasons behind the incident. All the same, we cannot allow even that to happen because hospitals are there to provide treatment to those who need it, regardless of where they come from. Mareres ordeal began when his wife, Mejury Muchemei, went into labour on Wednesday. A friend took her to Coronation hospital at 1pm and at 10am last Thursday doctors performed a Caesarean on her.

Merjury says that the baby was taken away and she was not given permission to see it. At 1pm on nurses apparently told her that the baby had died and again they denied her permission to see the child. Globally, the best practice patient care of mothers who lose their babies, especially full-term infants, is to let them see and hold the child. Marere was unaware of what had happened when he arrived to see his wife and child later in the day. He was told that visiting hours were at 8pm but expressed concern that he had not yet seen his wife or child. Neither was she on hospital or ward registers and so he began going from ward to ward looking for her.

Finally he found her but security guards arrived and said he could not see his wife or baby and that he had to leave. A friend, who is a member of the same Sandton church as Marere, protested to Matron Shaik who was on duty. They were then allowed to see Muchemei and it was only after 10pm after repeated pleas that she finally said the baby had died of asphyxia (usually when a cord becomes knotted around a baby’s neck during a long birth) and called someone named Shane from the mortuary to escort them to see the baby. Marere said they were shown into a walk-in cold room with approximately 40 white packets sealed with masking tape. He was told babies were in those and he and his two friends would have to go through each packet to find his baby – which they began doing.

However, after they had gone through about 20 or so packets, the other friend found a register, they went through it and his baby was about the sixth from the end of the list and so they found the packet his baby was in. He wrote the letter of complaint to Motsoaledi and Gauteng Member of Executive Council (MEC) for Health, Qedani Mahlangu, protesting the treatment and care of his wife at Coronation and the hospital’s insensitive treatment of him and his wife.