Families mourn cruel cancer deaths
Half of the cubicle floor was covered in a mixture of water and blood.
Two people who told WITBANK NEWS of their terrible ordeals in Witbank Hospital earlier this year when they were admitted as patients, has passed away on the same day.
In January of this year, WITBANK NEWS reported on a woman lying in Witbank Provincial Hospital’s condition, as well as the state of the hospital itself.
Mrs Hilda Grobler (who was referred to as Mrs Cynthia Meijer) in the article that was published in January lost her battle to cancer and died in Middelburg Hospital on May 11.
Mr Isak Havenga (under the pseudonym of Mr Peter Lombard) and who’s story appeared in WITBANK NEWS in April also died of pancreatic and liver cancer on the same day.
Grobler had first been admitted to Witbank Provincial Hospital on January 1.
Shortly after first being admitted, she underwent the first exploratory surgery of her abdominal cavity after which she was told that she might have a form of cancer, but further exploratory surgeries yielded no answers.
At the time that the WITBANK NEWS did their first report on Grobler and her experience of Witbank Provincial Hospital, she had already been lying in the surgical ward for two weeks.
The surgical ward didn’t have water, and she was forced to purchase bottled water or to bring it from home.
At the time, Grobler recounted her experience of Witbank Provincial Hospital, stating;
“When I tell the nurses I’m in pain, they just laugh at me. I only get my medicine twice a day; at 22:00 or 23:00 at night from the nurses working nightshift, and then only again when dayshift comes in.
I can’t have a shower, no matter how badly I want one, because there is no water in this ward. There’s not a single toilet on this ward that flushes due to the lack of water. They’re all full of faeces and urine… There is supposed to be a bucket for us to flush with, but it’s never there.
I’m so scared and I don’t know what to do. One of the nurses in this ward walks around and sings: ‘I can see you, you can see me, I don’t want to hear you.’”
After being admitted to Witbank Provincial Hospital on January 1, Mrs Grobler only received a diagnosis in April from Middelburg Hospital.
The diagnosis was cancer.
“Hilda was a warm, loving person who, despite the fact that she herself had nothing, would give everything to the people she cared about. She was an animal lover too, and her pets always came first,” a family friend recounted, “I don’t think the family want any of this to revolve around the hospitals, her treatment, her illness or her surgeries. Her friends and family just want her to be honoured and remembered for the amazing person that she was. We will all miss her terribly. The world is an emptier, sadder place without her. She leaves behind a husband and two children, who she loved dearly, along with a string of extended and nuclear family who are broken by her loss.”
On March 28, at approximately 12:00, Isak Havenga’s family rushed him to Witbank Provincial Hospital with generalized, inexplicable pain. Blood tests and x-rays were taken almost immediately.
By 23:00 that night, Isak was finally admitted.
Once inside of the ward, Isak had decided that it was about time that he emptied his bladder after the day’s events.
As Isak pulled open a cubicle, the door slowly dragged a stripe of blood across the floor.
Half of the cubicle floor was covered in a mixture of water and blood.
Isak’s daughter, Ezelda Hattingh, testifies that the bathroom remained in this state for at least nine hours before it was attended to.
Isak was told he’d need to go for a sonar to find the cause of his pain.
“After waiting in Witbank Provincial Hospital for days – with the doctors telling us they’ll do a sonar ‘tomorrow’ every day – my brother finally took my father’s file and had the sonar done privately… We were then told that my father would now need a CT scan,” Ezelda explained, “finally after a week and a half of waiting for the CT scan, my dad finally got one. The fluid that they were supposed to pump into his veins via an IV-bag for the CT scan didn’t go where it was intended to go. My father’s arm started filling up with fluid and swelling while he was waiting for the CT scan to commence. He had to kick and scream in order for the doctors to notice that something was wrong.”
Mr Havenga ended up being admitted to Steve Biko Academic Hospital in Pretoria, where it was finally confirmed after more than a month of anguish that he was suffering from pancreatic and liver cancer.
“The hospital told us that there was nothing more they could do for him, so they sent him home to be with us. He died in front of our eyes. The treatment he received, and the way the staff worked with him, at Steve Biko Academic Hospital was fantastic. He is free from pain now, and with our Heavenly Father in Paradise,” Ezelda said.
Isak leaves behind a grandchild (Kayden Hattingh), a son-in-law (Nico Hattingh), a daughter (Ezelda Hattingh), a son (Isak Havenga) and his wife (Leoni Havenga).
“Our hearts are broken, but heaven is one angel richer now,” Ezelda said.
Isak’s memorial service took place at the Dutch Reformed Church Witbank South in Plumer Street (the ‘trappies’/‘klippies’ church) on Friday, May 24, at 14:00.
*The Department of Health was approached in both instances for comment but hadn’t replied to any quiries.
