'Take your dead child with'

2005-12-15 22:30

Marietie Louw

Polokwane - "Take your child's body with you when you go home."

This was the shocking instruction a couple got from Mankweng hospital, about 30km from Polokwane, when their baby boy died shortly after his birth.

Andries Krugel said the hospital staff refused to allow his wife, Geraldine, to leave for home unless she took her baby's dead body with her.

"My wife asked then what she should do with the body; whether she should put it in the deep freeze at home," an upset Krugel said.

This was the second incident in the past two months where staff at the Mankweng hospital had told patients to take the bodies of dead babies with them.

Foetus in black bag

A Polokwane worker - who did not want her name mentioned - said her daughter experienced the same trauma some two months ago.

The woman had a miscarriage and had to take the six month old foetus with her in a black bag when she left the hospital.

The Krugels' baby boy, whom they would have christened Willem Frederik, was born in the Polokwane provincial hospital about two weeks ago.

He had a lung problem and because he could not be treated at the Polokwane provincial hospital, he was transferred to Mankweng.

Geraldine Krugel accompanied her child to the hospital.

"They did not give her a bed and she had to sit on a bench for three hours before they made a bed available," Krugel said.

The baby died of complications shortly before midnight.

'Be back at 06:00

"The nursing sisters then refused to release my wife unless she took the boy's body with her."

The Krugels were eventually allowed to leave, but had to report back at the hospital by 06:00 in the morning .

"We then had to wait until noon and were then again told to take the baby's body with us unless we could arrange with an undertaker to come and collect it."

Krugel arranged with an undertaker to collect the body the next morning.

"We were treated badly by the hospital and do you think it will help us at all to take any steps?

"We know nothing will come of it," a disgusted Krugel said.

'Unacceptable' Limpopo health department spokesperson Phuti Seloba said an investigation was under way to establish all the facts.

"It is only a person with a sick mind that can treat patients in that manner; this type of instruction is unacceptable," he said.

Seloba said nursing staff acting in that manner "must have lost all sense of compassion for their fellow beings".

He confirmed that all hospitals have mortuaries where bodies are supposed to be taken until the family can make arrangements with undertakers for proper removal of the bodies.

- Beeld