The NW Department of Health has admitted its medication blunder at Steve Tshwete Clinic in Ext. 7 where a nurse allegedly gave a granny (79) ARVs (antiretroviral drugs).
Tebogo Lekgethwane, the department’s spokesperson said the district manager had met with Lettie, noted the error and given her the correct medication.
“There was clearly an error on the side of the nurse and we have instituted disciplinary measures,” he said. Lekgethwane did not elaborate on what disciplinary measures would be taken.
Last Thursday, the newspaper reported how Lettie Dintwe (79) got the shock of her life after going to the clinic to collect her monthly prescription on 19 March.
Instead of receiving her regular hypertension medication, she got an envelope containing two containers of ARVs (antiretroviral drugs). The nurse gave her different medicine and told her to take one pill every night.
“Five days later, I started feeling nauseous and dizzy. Something was wrong,” Mrs Dintwe told the Herald.
After consulting with the neighbours and an HIV positive patient, the grandmother and mother of six discovered that the medication was indeed medication for HIV positive patients.
The old lady told the Herald that she is HIV negative and wondered why they had prescribed ARVs for her. “On 25 March, my son Thabo (40) took me for a rapid HIV test at a pharmacy and the results came back negative. They sent blood samples to the lab for confirmation and they also came back negative,” she said.
Thabo said the incident had affected his mother’s health badly. “She is not the same anymore. We are broken; we don’t understand why they gave her ARVs.”
*This is an abridged version of the article that appeared in the Potchefstroom Herald dated 04 April 2019.
