2 GRAPHIC VIDEOS!!!
VANDERBIJLPARK It was the year 1985 and a whole bright future life stretched out ahead of a young National Serviceman, Adriaan Roux. That was the case until a motorbike accident left him paralysed from just below his armpits. He recalls that “I was on my way to the bank on my motorbike when on rounding a corner the front tyre burst and I finally landed up against a tree. While lying there I immediately knew that something was seriously wrong”.
Adriaan, then only 22 years old, was confronted with the thoughts of a difficult life ahead as a paraplegic. Fortunately for him at that stage he did not know how difficult it was eventually to be. A that stage he could fortunately depend on lifelong medical assistance from the state Military Servjces. Excellent service were at that time available from state hospitals and especially from the military.
But today the situation is, however, dramatically different. Adriaan is now 54 and is permanently cloistered in his bed in Pioneer House, Vanderbijlpark. For a long time now his greatest wish is no longer that he might be able to get up and walk again. All that he can now hope for is that his fractured right leg be amputated so that the constant infections causing fever attacks should cease. “December last I developed bedsores on the left buttock but suddenly there were problems with army medications. After a long tussle with them I was told to attend the nearest state hospital. Sebokeng”.
“This was not a good idea. They let me fall out of the hospital bed and my femur was badly fractured almost at the hip. My friend Rita van Jansen then took me to 1 Military hospital where I was finally admitted after a great struggle to get my medical status sorted out. They treated my bedsores but did nothing about my fractured leg. My bed sores were healing nicely until someone made too strong a mixture of the acid being used to clean the sores and I consequently received serious burns”.
“From March this year I am constantly in and out of hospital, the bed sores are very bad and apparently my untreated fractured femur causes infection which probably poisons the whole of my body. I don’t feel any pain there but my leg swells up unimaginably and discharges litres of fluid which has to be regularly drained. A nursing sister attends to me on a regular basis but the situation is becoming even worse and I have high fever attacks”.
“Three weeks ago I was again at the hospital where they said the leg would have to be amputated and that I would require a colostomy bag. Last week I was again at the hospital where the final decision about the operation was to be made. The answer was that the operation required was too big and that they could do no more for me. One of the doctors unsympathetically said ‘You’re gonna die’. I was then sent home without any hope”
Because of financial problems at state hospitals, Adriaan can no longer obtain the wound dressing and bandaging which he had regularly received from 1 Military hospital in the past.
“All that I ask is that my leg be amputated. That is my only hope of getting out of this trying situation” is his only plea.
* Pharmacists or anyone who can donate medication or bandaging should feel free to contact Adriaan or Rita on 072 850 5898 or 063 249 8625.
