Small procedure goes horribly wrong
She went in with a cyst in her neck the size of a grape and came out with a hole the size of a bowling ball.
Hester Pitzar was left with a hole in her neck the size of a bowling ball after initially being admitted to Leratong Hospital to have a relatively small cyst drained.
Desperation and the helplessness of seeing her child in pain every day following a medical procedure that went horribly wrong led Pitzar’s mother, Belinda Pitzar to appeal to Krugersdorp news and local DA Ward Councillor Jakkie Naudé for help.
According to Pitzar she decided to speak out with the hope that the medical staff responsible for her daughter’s agony would be stopped from practicing.
“My daughter suffers daily because of the poor treatment she received. I have neither the money nor the resources to have her treated now. I don’t wish this on anyone,” she says.
Pitzar junior’s horror started when she was referred to Leratong after the staff at another state hospital had noticed a cyst the size of a grape in her neck. At Lerotong she was told the cyst needed to be drained.
“The medical staff wrote the words ‘small incision and drainage’ on an armband and strapped it around my arm,” she says.
Later that day she was instructed not to eat or drink as the procedure would be done under general anaesthetic.
More than 48 hours later the Pitzars still had not seen or heard from a doctor.
“By then my daughter was dehydrated and hungry.”
Two days after being admitted, Pitzar junior was given a Panado tablet and taken into a room where one of the medical staff used a scalpel to make an incision in her neck.
“I did not get any form of anaesthetic,” she says.
The next day she noticed a large hole in her neck surrounded by black, decaying tissue.
After being sent home without painkillers she and her mother consulted a private practitioner at Medicross who offered his services free of charge. The practitioner expressed his horror with the way the procedure had been done.
Today Pitzar junior lives in pain and is unable to sleep unless she sits upright.
If she does not recover as hoped the Pitzars will have to pay for a skin graft, a procedure they admittedly will never be able to afford as they rely on public health services – the same services that caused their suffering, according to the family.
According to Fikile Mbhele, senior Communication Officer of Leratong Hospital, Pitzar junior was evaluated by a surgical consultant following a call by the news and Gauteng DA spokesperson for Health, Jack Bloom.
