We want justice – botched operation patients

Sharon Mathala | Tuesday May 16, 2023 06:00

 

Now four of the patients are suing government in a class action suit. The quartet, Margret Morapedi, 61, Ntombiekhaya Mpofu, 54, David Kiberu, 41, and Daniel Tlhomelang, 46, have served the Ministry of Health intends to sue following the incident.

This week, following a failed attempt to meet with Minister of Health Edwin Dikoloti after waiting for over 10 hours, the patients called on The Monitor to share their heartbreaking story.

The quartet is simply looking for answers. They each want to know why government allowed a private doctor to operate on them and insert a device which has not been approved.

Between the years 2009 and 2022, the patients were all operated on and inserted a stimulator device, according to them, when they were asked to sign the consent form they were told the stimulator will help ease their pains.

Morapedi was operated on in February 2020, Kiberu in January 2022, Mpofu in 2019, and Tlhomelang in March 2022.

Morapedi says her story began when she fell and injured herself in 2018. She spent the next few years undergoing physio. She adds that in one of her hospital visits, she was referred to a private hospital in Gaborone, but little did she know her life would change forever.

“When I first saw the doctor (names withheld) I was told it will be a minor operation. After days in the hospital, he told me that now he was going to insert a device called a stimulator and that it would help ease my pains. The doctor told me that he would perform the operation and that his partner from South Africa will come to activate the device. I had no reason to doubt the doctor, let alone a doctor commissioned by government, and so I signed the consent paper,” she said.

Morapedi further says for the rest of the year the doctor operated on her a total of four times first of which was on February 4, 2020, when the doctor inserted this device. For the other operations that would follow, she says the doctor had said to her that he had discovered lumps and hence why her pains were not going away. She says she now realises that was far from the truth.

“I have been in extreme pain since he inserted the stimulator. But he discharged me saying it will get better, but it did not. Weeks later I went back to the hospital but this time the doctor was nowhere to be found. When he was finally available he said he was performing another operation. Three operations later I was still in pain. This time he disappeared for long. I was referred to another doctor who refused to assist me saying he knew nothing about the device that was inserted into me,” Morapedi said. Another patient, who is also crippled after having the device inserted by the same doctor says she was operated on in 2019 after falling from a wet floor at her workplace in Maun. She says she was referred to the same doctor who operated on her saying that the device will ease her pain.

It only got worse.

Another patient who spoke to this publication says he was involved in a car accident. He says he too was referred to the same private doctor who inserted the device on him. He says he has been living on pain medication and crutches since the operation. He says efforts to locate the doctor have been futile.

The patients were to meet by chance at one of their scheduled doctor’s appointments.

“One of the private doctors told me that there were other patients who had the same condition as mine. We phoned each other and decided to form a group. We pleaded with government to at least remove the devices but no doctor locally could do so as they honestly did not know what the device was and how to remove it,” Morapedi said.

Soon after forming a group, one of the patients died.

“That was a scary moment for us,” Morapedi said.

After an expose in one of the tabloid papers, government finally decided to engage the patients.

“The six of us were taken to India to remove the devices. This was last year in October. The doctors there told each of us that although they removed the stimulator devices more operations needed to be done but this was not possible as government had sent us there for one specific reason,” Morapedi said.

The quartet says they want justice as their lives will never be the same again.

“I can’t do any work now because of my condition. Can you imagine I travelled all the way to Maun to meet the minister, but he could not even meet us or even apologise,” Mpofu said.

“To show you that government has been giving us a cold shoulder since India, the doctors specifically said we should not sit for more than an hour, but we were made to travel from India to Botswana in economy. They did not even provide food for us during the waiting period at the airport,” Morapedi said.

The daughter of the deceased patient also added that if were it not for this device her mother would be alive.

“She died as a result of the spinal stimulator device which was also removed from her body during a post-mortem conducted last year June in Francistown,” said deceased patient, Rale Tekeletso’s daughter, Ingrid Corbett.

The answer they need is why government approved a private doctor to operate on them and insert a device which is not known by any other professional let alone accredited.