The Sunday News
Robin Muchetu, Senior Reporter
MPILO Central Hospital doctors who have been under investigation for allegedly charging a ‘‘breast cancer’’ patient $10 000 for an operation that costs less have been cleared of trying to swindle the patient, Sunday News has learnt.
On Friday the hospital’s chief executive officer, Mr Leonard Mabhandi, summoned the accused doctors to a hearing to gather facts on the circumstances into the case of the patient who was allegedly ill-treated at the hospital. Although officials were not giving much, Sunday News understands that the doctors were found not guilty. The institution’s clinical director, Mr Solwayo Ngwenya, could not shed any light as he said they were concluding some paperwork. Mr Mabhandi was also not reachable yesterday.
“There was a meeting on Friday over this issue and we are waiting for paperwork to be concluded so on Monday I may have finer details,” said Mr Ngwenya.
Sources close to the matter said the hospital made an inquiry into the matter and found the doctors not guilty of any wrong doing after the family of the late Ms Phanankosi Dube said she had been mistreated at the hospital. The family was accusing the doctors of having demanded an exorbitant amount of money for an operation which was said to cost a maximum of $2 000 until she succumbed to her condition. She was admitted to the hospital on 19 May and discharged a few days after admission and advised to seek funds for an operation. It is still unclear where the amount of US$10 000 emanated from.
A source close to the investigations said during the inquiry, treatment charts for the patient showed that there was nothing amiss in the manner in which the hospital treated the woman neither does it show she had cancer.
“According to treatment charts there is nothing amiss in the way she was managed at the hospital and again she did not have cancer as reported. She had abnormal breast tissue which saw her breasts grow very large and no cancer as reported,” said the source.
The investigation revealed that the woman died at her home and no post-mortem was carried out to find the cause of death.
“The family did not bother to do a post-mortem to establish the cause of death so this means no one knows what she died from, she was not in the care of the institution when she died. It is not the institution’s fault at all,” said the source.
The late Ms Dube is said to have been informed that she needed to go for tests in order to try and ascertain what she was suffering from before she was operated on.
“She was informed when she came that she needed to go for investigation before doctors could decide to operate or not. She needed to be checked what problems she had with other vital organs and other laboratory tests before doctors could remove or work on the breasts but she did not do all that but instead said she had cancer and sought help via the media,” added the source.
Ms Dube did not do the suggested investigations by the hospital and never returned to the hospital until she succumbed to her condition, source said. However, other sources close to the happenings claimed that the whole case was a suspected scam as Ms Dube’s relative (name withheld) was allegedly in the habit of soliciting for funds using the deceased for personal use.
“It is suspected he used to get money from well wishers and that is what they survived on, he never used it to seek medical assistance but spent the money until she died,” said the source.
The source also revealed that there was no doctor who had said Ms Dube had breast cancer, as he reported to the media.
Investigations also revealed that Ms Dube had been living with the condition of large breasts for over 20 years and other medical doctors said had it been breast cancer she would have deteriorated much earlier. A relative told the Press that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer when she was in Grade Three.
Initially the woman in question, a single mother from Makokoba appeared in our sister paper, Chronicle asking for donations to undergo an operation to remove her “cancerous” breasts that had grown in to unmanageable size. Her family alleged that the hospital had charged her
$10 000 which was due on 16 June to remove the breasts which were making her fail to walk or breathe properly. They further alleged that the doctors had said it was a confirmed case of advanced breast cancer which needed to be surgically removed.
