Zimbabwean Woman Narrates How Her Mother Eventually Died After Being Rejected By Hospitals
A Bulawayo woman has narrated how her asthmatic mother died after health institutions refused to admit her as they had no certificate to prove that she had no coronavirus.
The 26-year-old Nobukhosi Ndlovu said her 47-year-old mother Nomaqhawe had always struggled with acute asthma, characterised by shortness of breath, chest tightness, coughing and in most serious cases, wheezing.
She said on Monday last week, her mother suffered a sudden asthmatic attack which could not be stabilised by an inhaler prompting them to take her to the hospital. She added:
This was around 9.30pm and we first went to a local public hospital in Bulawayo where we were turned away because we could not produce a certificate to show that my mother did not have coronavirus.
We drove around Bulawayo trying to find a place where we could get her admitted, but we were turned away at all the places we went to because they suspected she might have coronavirus yet it was just asthma.
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Even after presenting medical documents to show that my mother had always suffered from asthma, hospital administration staff were sceptical and insisted on a coronavirus test.
Ndlovu added that since she did not have the US$80 required for a private Covid-19 test, she decided to go back home with her mother, who sadly died in the early hours of Tuesday.
The secretary-general of the Senior Hospital Doctors Association (SHDA) Arron Musara told the Daily News on Sunday that health institutions were turning patients away because of the potential exposure to the coronavirus.
Health caregivers have for long claimed that they do not have adequate personal protective equipment (PPEs) and the government is reportedly doing less to fill the gap.
More: Daily News
