Draconian treatment under the guise of cost-saving measures

My mom has an aortic aneurysm and has been in hospital for 3 weeks. Bonitas has been refusing to authorise the surgery. They had approved 3 stents but the surgeon needed 1. They’ve asked for procedure quotation review several times all because they want to pay for the cheapest stent.

We’ve sent in a query to Bonitas and they promised to come back to us the next day.. we’re still waiting. Do we really need to phone and email bonitas daily to remind somebody that this is a life or death situation? My mom is frustrated and anxious about the whole situation and this is not helping the medical condition she already has.

We don’t even know if this operation will ever be authorised. Since when does it take the medical aid this long to get an operation authorised? Is this fair? The whole situation smells like the Esidimeni saga to me.