Africa-Press – South-Africa. A 51-year-old woman in the rural Eastern Cape, who is in severe pain after a fall, has been told to wait nearly six weeks to be transferred to a hospital which is capable of performing the necessary surgery.
Makemiso Ramabitle was on her way home from a traditional ceremony in the village of Dititjerent, when she took a wrong turn. She found herself lost in steep mountain terrain.
“It was at night and there was fog. I only remember rolling from the mountain, hitting stones,” she said.
She fell down a rock face and ended up wedged in a crevice.
“Each time, when I tried to stand, I would fall … I could not move my lower body. I slept there, helpless, thirsty and hungry,” she said.
“I thought I was going to die. I kept on praying to God to send at least one person in my direction. I was in so much pain.”
She was there from Monday night, 17 October, until Thursday, the 20th.
She was found by a shepherd, who was searching for cows. He called for help and men from her village of Mohosi, six kilometres away, came and rescued her.
“I’m lucky to be alive,” she said.
Ntambo Msuthwana, one of the men who found her, said: “When we found her, she was in so much pain. She just asked for water.”
Yet her ordeal was not over.
Msuthwana took her to Taylor Bequest Hospital in Matatiele, 67km away.
But the hospital has no orthopaedic surgeons for complicated fractures. X-rays showed her hip bone was cracked and she had a broken knee bone.
Ramabitle was discharged the same day.
She was told she would be transferred to Nelson Mandela Academic Hospital in Mthatha for surgery, but this could only take place on 28 November, nearly six weeks later.
The receptionist said they had to wait for beds to be available in Mthatha, which served several hospitals.
Ramabitle can hardly walk. She needs help to go to the toilet. She is in constant pain. She was given 10 paracetamol tablets by the hospital.
Ramabitle said:
She shares a one-room mud house with her husband, Tsietsi. He is a shepherd and earns R1 500 a month. They owe the man who took her to hospital R1 000.
“At least, he had mercy. He didn’t charge for a return trip, even though he waited for me,” she said.
There is a bakkie that serves as public transport to the hospital, leaving at 06:00 and returning at 16:00. Outside of these times, villagers have to hire private vehicles at R1 800 a return trip.
As the ambulance will leave Taylor Bequest for Nelson Mandela Academic Hospital at 02:00, Ramabitle will have to wait at the hospital all day.
Eastern Cape Department of Health spokesperson Yonela Dekeda confirmed that Taylor Bequest in Matatiele did not have orthopaedic surgeon care.
Dekeda did not clarify why there was such a long delay before the operation could be performed.
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