Family Blames Father’s Death on Local Clinic’s Inaction

Buti Malinga died last week at the age of 57. His family believe he might have been saved had the local clinic helped them.

The Malinga family believe that their father’s life might have been saved had he received attention at the Makgolokoeng village clinic near Harrismith in the Free State.

Buti Malinga, 57, died on 7 October. The family rented a car to take Buti to the clinic at about 1pm that day. He was weak but could still walk into the waiting room.

Buti’s 22-year-old son, Fanyane, says reception told him they were taking no new patients for the day and he should take Buti to a doctor. Buti was now bubbling at the mouth.

They returned home and Buti’s sister, Marta, went to a loan shark to borrow money for the consultation fee. They then drove Buti to a hospital in Harrismith.

Unfortunately, my father died while the doctor was busy trying to help him … around 3pm,” says Fanyane.

“We knew that it was late at the time we took him to the clinic, but we thought they would give assistance considering the fact that he was critical,” says Marta. “We spent about two hours going up and down with him.”

She said they did not call an ambulance because “they would always ask if we went to the clinic” first. They also did not go straight to Thebe Hospital, “because when you get there they want to check if you went to the clinic” first.

A number of people told GroundUp the clinic stops taking patients after lunch. Resident Mathebe Motaung said this was despite the staff staying on until 4pm.

“They should employ people who want to work … If they don’t solve this, we will burn it,” she said.

Spokesperson for the provincial health department Mondli Mvambi said, “We have learned about the incident and our Thabo Mofutsanyana district director is investigating the matter.”

“Our clinic should operate from 7:30am to 4pm, but they should make sure that everyone is attended to.”

He said it was not true that ambulances could not be be called in an emergency. However, he said, “We have a challenge of people that are abusing ambulances and this prompts ambulance call centres to probe callers to determine if there is really an emergency.”

With regard to hospitals, he said, “People don’t want to go to the clinics … You find a lot of people at hospitals when they could have been treated at the clinics and make space for those with critical illnesses.”

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