Sickening Trauma unit of Zuid Afrikaanse Hospital

On 3:30am Thursday 20 September 2018 I brought in my 14 year old son to your emergency unit because he was complaining about a soar throat and that he was not feeling well right thru the night. The mail nurse took his blood pressure and fever and put him on a drip for fever. He was spitting into a basket and the male nurse brought him the bucket to spit in. The Doctor on duty saw him for about 30 seconds and only look into his throat and told the male nurse that a throat swap should be done and blood trace should be done and disappeared into his little office. There were no other patients at any other room. He never listened to his lungs or heart and was only looking with a stick in his throat and didn’t even have a stethoscope with him. At about six o’clock he came out and said to me the new Doctor Dr Koert Gouws will take over now. Dr Gouws looked at his blood results and said he looked fine and send him home. I took him home and put him in bed and tried to give him medication and made him rest. I left to work at about 1PM because I had a lot of work to sort out work. When my wife got home is his fever was 39.3. When I got at home I immediately brought him to hospital. Sadly the same doctor and nurse was on duty and nobody else were in one of the other rooms. They said I should drive up to the door but when I got there nobody was there to help me so I had to carry my son in because he was to weak to walk. The last words he said to me was: “Can’t they help me” That was about 21:00 or after. They put him on a drip again and at about 23:45 the Doctor came and said they gonna admit him for high fever. He was admitted to a normal hospital room.

For some reason 4 o’clock the morning x-rays were done of his lungs and it was very bad. He was send to a private room and then to ICU from where his condition only become worse. The following Thursday morning he had to be transferred to Unitas hospital to be put on a Ecmo Machine. He had lung surgery and struggle to stop bleeding and after a few days he opened his eyes for the first time in 2 weeks. He could communicate with us through blinking his eyes and nodding his head. Sadly the bacteria went to his brain and he had to go for scull removal surgery. He almost died there but pull through and went into a brain coma but it start progressing slowly. The following week Thursday they decided to do Lung surgery again and he lost again a lot of blood and his blood pressure went very very low. We were called in 00:00 that night and the Doctor on call went home 02:00 because she said she can’t do anything anymore. We stayed with him the whole night and by 05:00 his blood pressure went up, not much but acceptable. The nurses lowered the medication and everything went down again. I asked for a Doctor but the first Doctor only arrived after 09:00. My son passed away at about 10:40. I had to bury my 14 year old son that I believe could have prevented If the Doctor was patient orientated and would have done a thorough examination of him. Nothing against your hospital but I lost all my trust in your emergency section. Not that I can bring a kid there again.

Yours sincerely Andre van Zyl father of the Late Keandré van Zyl (14)