The Matshini family, who stays in Hlalanikahle, says they will not forget the day they brought their sick three week old baby to Hlalanikahle Clinic.
The baby, Reithabetse Matshini, was brought to the clinic on Tuesday, May 12, according to the mother. Mother and father took the baby to the clinic.
They stated that they brought the baby to the clinic at about 06:15 after she had been crying for the past hour. They waited for the clinic to open at about 07:00 and all this time the baby was crying, they alleged.
At the clinic, a clerk gave all the patients numbers and asked them to stand in the queue. He asked the Matshini parents to stand in a queue reserved for babies and children
They were later told that a file will be opened for them “After about 30 minutes, the baby’s father raised his concern to the nurses about the crying baby who seems to be in pain and asked for urgent attention, he was ignored. He went again to ask for the nurses to attend to the baby, he was told to wait his turn. He went again for the third time and again he was ignored. After about 20 minutes he told the nurse that baby was no longer crying, said the baby’s mother Makarabo Matshini.
It was only then that the nurses attended to the baby and they confirmed that she was dead and was taken to another room.
The family feels that if the nurses had attended to baby sooner she might have survived, or maybe if an ambulance was called earlier to take the baby to the hospital it would have survived.
They feel that by the time the clinic was opened a lot could have been done to save the baby. The family also feels that nurses need to attend to urgent cases first and to improve on their service at the clinic.
A questionnaire in connection with allegations of the baby has been sent to the Mpumalanga Department of Health, head of communications Mr Dumisani S. Malamule and no response was received from Mr Malamule.
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