Hospital hides newborn’€™s death

Mejury Muchemei is mourning the death of her baby son, but has many questions about why he died ‘€“ and why Coronation Hospital took hours to tell her that he was dead.

Muchemei went into labour last Wednesday and a friend rushed her to Coronation Hospital at 1pm. But it took 21 hours ‘€“ until 10am last Thursday ‘€“ for the hospital to perform a Caesarean to her. Now her full term baby son is dead and she does not understand why he died.

When her husband, Yasser Marere, tried to find her on Thursday evening, the hospital had no record of his wife, who is a Zimbabwean with refugee status in South Africa.

When Marere was finally told that his son was dead, the hospital made him sort through 40 bodies in its morgue before he found the perfectly formed little boy.

Sister Zohra Shaik told Marere that the little boy had asphyxiated, which indicates that healthworkers took too long to deliver him.

When Marere, a Zimbabwean businessman, arrived at the hospital at 5pm on Thursday, he had no idea that his baby was dead.  

Instead, Marere was told to return during visiting hours at 8pm. When he complained that he had not seen his wife or child since the day before, he learned that the hospital had no record of her.

‘€œWhen I phoned the hospital to hear how my wife was doing, I was told she had given birth.   But when I came to see her and the baby I found that she was not registered in any of the wards,’€ said Marere. ‘€œ I had to look for her in all the wards. I went from ward seven, six, nine and then seven again where I eventually found her.’€

Before he could speak to his wife, security guards tried to evict him from the ward as it was not visiting hour. However, a friend who is a Johannesburg business executive, protested to Sister Shaik, who allowed Marere to see his wife.

Shaik finally told him that his son had died of asphyxiation.

When Marere asked to see his baby, he was told to go to the morgue. Marere and his friends were shown into a walk-in cold room with over forty sealed white packets containing babies’€™ bodies. They were told to go through each of the packets to find his child.

‘€œI asked how I would be able to see my son since I had not seen him before and the man at the mortuary told me that I should read the tag attached to each child to see if he isn’€™t mine,’€ said Marere.

After going through more than half the packets, one of his friends found a register and they were able to locate his baby.

‘€œI am embarrassed at the treatment my wife and I received. We were treated like sub-humans and those in authority have to know about the treatment we get in hospitals,’€ said an angry Marere.

He  has written a letter to Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi and Gauteng health MEC Qedani Mahlangu to voice his outrage at the treatment received by his family at Coronation hospital.

At the time of going to press, a hospital spokesperson said that they could not comment as they were still investigating the matter.

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