MTN letting down elderly customers needing phones during Coronavirus pandemic

In late February I was forced to rush my elderly (eighty +) mother to casualty at our local hospital. In my rush to get her treated, I forgot to take my phone with me. The phone she carries FOR EMERGENCY USE, however, was in her bag. She uses PayAsYouGo airtime and had a balance of close to one hundred rand in her account. Imagine my horror when I tried to use her phone and got a message “invalid sim”. When she had recovered from her injury I took her to the Eastgate MTN store to get her SIM reinstated. I explained that she could not change her number as it would be impossible to track down all the people she’d given her number to over the last twenty plus years. The “manager” said she’d try to solve the problem and would contact me. I heard nothing, so a week later (March eleven) I sent her a WhatsApp message reminding her about the case. Her reply read “i am waiting for feedback from our activation department i will advise you as soon as i get feedback”. I’ve heard nothing since then. Yesterday the problem became much more serious. As my mother is part of a high risk group for Coronavirus she can't go out to do shopping. To ensure her safety she needed to make an important order from the pharmacy online but was unable to pay because she couldn't receive an OTP from her bank. I sent the manager another WhatsApp message this morning informing her of this development but have received NO REPLY. How is she supposed to get food and medical supplies if she cannot leave the house and can’t pay for online purchases?