The family of 58-year-old Dibakiso Tshabalala from Phuthaditjhaba in Qwaqwa has accused the local Maluti-a-Phofung municipality and Mofumahadi Manapo Mopeli Regional Hospital  in the Free State of negligence that led to her death after the generator ran out of diesel during a power outage on Wednesday night. 

The deceased’s son Dumisane Tshabalala says he is disappointed at how authorities handled the matter. He says the family first heard of the allegations that Dibakiso Tshabalala died due to a power cut on social media posts by other patients.

Tshabalala says hospital officials visited the family home on Thursday afternoon. But the family wasn’t at home, they were still at the hospital.   

“I’m only hearing in the media that some people from the hospital came to the family to give us sympathy and social support. But those guys didn’t even give us that social support. They went to our home and we were not there. We told them to wait for us – the sad part is that they left us within their facility,” says Tshabalala. 

“We were busy with the papers to take the body of my deceased mother to the mortuary but they had the audacity to leave us there.”

Investigation underway

This death triggered health MEC Viceroy Mahlatsi to call an urgent meeting on Thursday with stakeholders to uncover what happened. 

The incident has received attention from other senior government officials too. 

The Free State Premier Maqueen Letsoha Mathae says it is unfortunate how the hospital handled the matter. She says the government owes Tshabalala’s family an explanation on what happened.

“The report that I also got is that the family felt that they’ll have to take the legal route. But we’ve got the responsibility as government to make sure that we did deeper into this matter, get the feedback and definitely we’ll have to go and meet the family. No matter how sad they are, at the end of the day we will have to communicate the outcomes of our investigations,” she says. 

The department says it is investigating the matter. Spokesperson Mondli Mvambi says district officials are gathering information.

“The MEC has instructed the HOD to provide the explanation as to what happened on the day that Tshabalala died. We will explain to the family once the report is ready. Again we want to state on the record that the department is working hard to curb further unnecessary deaths at the facility. The meeting between the MEC and stakeholders has yielded positives. Both power and water will be available at the facility from now on going forward,” he says.

Mvambi says the preliminary report indicates that Tshabalala was on a life support machine. “From what we have at the moment, the deceased patient was on life support and there was a power outage. Our generator kicked in until it ran out of fuel, we will get a report from officials who were on shift that day,” he adds.   

Meanwhile, a nurse who requested to be anonymous fearing victimisation says: “It is a must for an official responsible for refuelling of the generator to be present during the power outage. He was not present and there’s no record of him being present at the time of generator take over. He only came later after the entire hospital went dark after we called him to come. This death is the 4th this year due to an electricity outage, but officials covered it.”

Mvambi could not confirm if the official was present. However a nurse confirms to Health-e that the responsible official has been suspended. “He was suspended on Friday when the story was making rounds on social media,” he says. – Health-e News