Patient disappears from hospital
A relative of the patient went to visit his aunt when he found that she is missing and no one knows her whereabouts.
Three days have passed since a patient suffering from meningitis mysteriously disappeared from the Dr Yusuf Dadoo Hospital.
“I took my aunt to this hospital as I believed that it was an excellent hospital that looked after their patients, but now this happened.” — Stanley Sebe, nephew of the patient that went missing.
Stanley Sebe (31) went to visit his aunt Kefilwe Mahlangu (45) during visiting hours on the evening of Sunday 15 September and found that she was not in her bed, her food was untouched and medicine containers on her bedside cabinet.
Sebe who regards Mahlangu as his mother after his own mother passed away when he was about five years old, says he asked the nurses if they have seen his aunt.
“As she is also suffering from confusion (a symptom of meningitis) she would walk around and talk to the nurses and go into the other patients’ rooms and take their blankets, so I thought that they might know where she was as the patient lying next to her told me the last time she had seen her was during the lunch hour.”
He says the nurses did not know her whereabouts and told him that they saw her leaving her room about 20 minutes before he arrived. They started looking for her in the ward and after she could not be found on the hospital’s premises, the nurses together with Sebe drove around Krugersdorp to find her, but then gave up.
“On Monday morning 16 September I went back to the hospital and the nurses who helped to try and locate her the previous day and who was off duty by then still tried to find her by doing follow-ups.”
Sebe says that in a way he feels responsible for her disappearance as he was the one who arranged for her to be taken to Dr Yusuf Dadoo Hospital after realising that she was ill.
“How is it possible that she managed to walk from the hospital’s grounds in her condition? Could the security guards not see that she was not well and that she was wearing a hospital gown?” asks Sebe.
“I am very confused about the whole situation as we as a family don’t know what will happen if she is not found.”
He says if that happens they will hold the hospital accountable.
“I took my aunt to this hospital as I believed that it was an excellent hospital that looked after their patients, but now this happened.”
Sebe says that allegedly the hospital checked with the government mortuary as well as the hospital’s mortuary, but Mahlangu was not there.
The NEWS sent a request for comment to Puseletso Mabidikame, the hospital communications spokesperson but has not received comment by the time of going to print.
