'I can't anymore. It hurts'
2003-07-31 09:31
Lizel Steenkamp
Johannesburg - The Potchefstroom student who died of meningitis last month lay crying continuously in her bed a few hours before her death, while hospital staff waited in vain for her doctor to arrive.
Rose-Mare Venner, 20, was admitted to Potchefstroom Medi-Clinic about 02:00 on June 27. Later she had to be taken to a changing room in a wheelchair because she was too weak to walk. She complained she had lost feeling in her feet and legs.
A woman who lay next to her in the ward said on Wednesday Venner kept begging: "Help me, help me, I can't anymore. It hurts."
"None of us in the ward could sleep. The nurses kept comforting her, saying they'd called the doctor and he would arrive any mintue.
"She rolled around in pain and they put up the bars around her bed so she wouldn't fall out. They tried to take her blood pressure at six in the morning but couldn't get anything.
"I lay on my side and watched her. There was blood in her mouth and on her teeth. I was getting panicky - I could see she wasn't well."
According to the 39-year-old woman, who prefers to remain anonymous, Dr Hans Botha apparently only arrived at Venner's bedside about 08:30. He and another doctor later discussed the student's condition with nurses.
"I stood up to comfort her. Her eyes were wild with fear. I stroked her arm and hair and tried to calm her. There were purple spots on her arm and back - it looked like a rash."
The woman was discharged later that morning. "A sister told me then that she had died. I was very upset. I couldn't sleep for nights afterwards. I kept seeing her face in front of me."
Potchefstroom optometrist Elna Grobler said Botha had informed her on Friday morning Venner was dead. "He said she had presumably died of Congo fever."
Venner, a student at Potchefstroom Academy, had looked after Grobler's two children for seven months before her sudden death.
Botha refused to comment on Wednesday. "I can't say anything. My statement is already with the lawyers."
- Beeld