Patient 'sent home early'

CRITICAL: FAMILY RALLIES NEIGHBOURS TO RE-ADMIT BRAIN SURGERY WOMAN >>> Authorities insist discharge from hospital was voluntary.

- Masoka Dube

GRIM. Behind these walls of Witbank Hospital in Nkangala, Mpumalanga, Ayanda Mnisi's family is fighting for care that should never be denied to her.

(Nigel Sibanda)

A Mpumalanga family has accused Witbank Hospital in Nkangala of negligence after their daughter, a brain surgery patient, was discharged while still critically ill.

Left in the care of medically untrained relatives, her condition deteriorated so severely that community members intervened to force the hospital to readmit her. Ayanda Mnisi, 35, was admitted to the hospital in October for brain surgery.

Weeks later, she was discharged, despite suffering partial paralysis, being confined to a wheelchair and still carrying an open wound on her head.

Doctors instructed her to return once a week for checkups, leaving her family to manage the remaining six days without medical training or resources.

Her mother, Sonto Mnisi, said the family struggled to care for Ayanda, whose wound worsened rapidly.

"She was critically ill and the infection was spreading all over her head," she recalled.