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This article is not for the squeamish or faint-hearted but it aptly illustrates both the fragility of life and the state of the country we live in today and I sincerely hope that readers of it will see through the heart-wrenching personal grief and suffering and truly understand the basic premise – that we are not receiving from our government, and leaders, the value - and lifestyle - that we deserve and which we pay for with our taxes.
Like many of us in SA today, struggling to make ends meet, to make an honest living and to reduce costs, my fiancé eventually cancelled her medical aid cover when the choice had to be made between paying her bond, and surviving, and having adequate medical cover.
Lindy was, although small in stature and petite, an independent, strong-willed and highly motivated woman with her own ideas, her own manner of doing things and her own way of keeping going when faced with life’s obstacles and challenges. Lindy was as strong a person as I’ve ever met and one of the most beautiful – a striking blonde filled with a zest for life, a love for her garden, for plants and animals and with huge compassion for her fellow human beings.
Lindy was a true mother, lover and companion and she lived life to its fullest.
Unfortunately Lindy also suffered from stress – as most of us do – high blood pressure, cholesterol and hereditary heart disease.
Being fully aware of her shortcomings, if ill health can so be described – as if it is something we have any control over – she attempted to live a healthy lifestyle, avoiding fast and oily foods, doing plenty of exercise and generally living a healthy and wholesome life. She smoked and drank, as most of us do, but had a good diet, was very aware of her body and she was slim, carrying little fat on her small frame and weighing just 49 kg.
In May this year we finally decided that the angina attacks she was having were becoming life-threatening and that surgery to her ailing heart was our only course of action.
I then spoke to a variety of people, from friends and family who had had heart ailments, heart attacks and heart surgery to doctors and surgeons who specialized in the field. All agreed that heart surgery was traumatic – life changing and painful – but that it was survivable and, indeed, not the death sentence it once had been. After all, SA was a pioneer in the field thanks to Chris Barnard and others.
It was also extremely costly and the best estimates I could get were that, privately, it would cost us in excess of 250,000K. It would seem that a bed in ICU in a private clinic can cost one 40K per day which goes a long way to explaining a lot of things.
Lindy and I thus attacked the problem with her usual energy and my own particular brand of dogged determination. We managed to have her admitted early one cold winter morning to Steve Biko Academic Hospital in Pretoria, apparently suffering from a heart attack when it was really only another angina attack, although quite severe.
So far so good – she was examined, admitted, had all the tests done and after 10 days was released with an appointment made for late July for the bypass to take place. It had cost us no more than a couple of hundred Rand plus accommodation, fuel etc and we were feeling confident.
It was now just a matter of returning home, taking it easy, avoiding stress, taking the meds supplied and enduring the 7 weeks until I could re-admit her to have the op which we knew would change our lives and ensure that we could grow old together as we wished to do.
We had both been unimpressed with the state of SBAH in Pretoria as general wards – in winter – had no hot water, the food was virtually inedible and the general nursing staff not up to the standard one expected from health professionals. It was inexpensive however and that was what we needed as our finances after a couple of months were taking strain from the to and fro, doctors, plus fuel costs and medicines. My little business was our only income and it too was taking strain from the expenses we were incurring but SBAH was apparently the best the government could offer and we were willing to take the chance. We actually had no option.
I duly admitted Lindy to SBAH on 21st July for the op to take place on 23rd and then our problems began in earnest.
Instead of having the op, as planned, more tests were done, more delays – for a variety of reasons – were the order of the day and more costs were incurred for accommodation, fuel and food.
Doctors were never available for consultation, the hospital was a continual seething mass of people all looking for help and the staff it seemed were overwhelmed and less concerned about individuals and more about getting through the day and getting their pay cheques at the end of the month.
In other words it was a typical government institution, the type we read about, and sometimes endure, when we apply for licenses, passports etc.
Finally Lindy was scheduled for surgery and this was duly performed on 11th August, 3 weeks after her admittance. I was waiting in ICU when she awoke and after a 2 hour operation – normally taking anything between 5 and 7 hours – she seemed drowsy and doped up but fine.
I sat with her for an hour and a half – visiting hour – and then left, feeling confident and relieved as everything seemed to be going according to plan.
I returned the following day and suddenly everything had gone downhill, fast. Lindy was on oxygen as she couldn’t breathe on her own, she was restrained hand and foot to the bed and there was panic in her eyes. More than panic, she looked like she was fighting to stay alive and I was shocked, desperate and ready to tear the place apart.
I managed to have a talk to a doctor, eventually, and his verdict was that she had been a smoker, thus her system was fighting nicotine withdrawal, but the operation had been successful and that we now just needed time for her to recover.
It would seem, in reality however, that Lindy picked up an infection in theatre, that it took this bunch of quacks 5 days to discover this and that they then panicked, readmitting her to surgery and attempting – too late – to save her life.
The surgeons, doctors and nursing staff all assumed that nicotine withdrawal was causing Lindy’s discomfort when in fact she was dying.
For a month thereafter Lindy clung to life, always on oxygen, mostly restrained as they feared she would damage the chest wound where they had cut her sternum and always with a fearful look in her eyes. She couldn’t speak to me but spoke with her eyes when I was at her side and I knew there was a problem. Unfortunately during all this time the surgeon always seemed too busy to talk to me, this because of pressure of work I assumed.
Lindy went back into theatre 3 more times during this period, firstly to clear infections and then to have the sternum reattached after the infections she had picked up had, apparently, been cleared. Always the prognosis was that she was weak but would get better, time just needed.
Finally, after 18 days in ICU, Lindy was taken back to a normal ward and things seemed to be improving. Lindy could sit up, talk and although in pain seemed to be getting better. I once more took heart and began to look forward to her release so that we could begin our new life together.
Lindy died early on Monday morning, 8th September, in the cardio-thoracic ward at SBAH, the nurse who informed me saying that doctors had fought to save her but that an embolism had caused cardiac arrest and they were unable to resuscitate her.
She had been in SBAH for 50 days, had had a double bypass operation, been in theatre 3 times, suffered through a number of infections, was basically a bag of bones – her legs unable to support her after being restrained and on her back for virtually the whole period of time since the op - and she was exhausted, weak and no doubt extremely tired of the pain and exertion forced on her.
I held a memorial service for Lindy, at her home, on 11th September for all our friends and her relatives when Lindy and I had intended to be married in the same place once she had recovered. This is something I wish on no other, the pain being something I have never before experienced and have no wish to repeat. It has altered, forever, my way of thinking and it is something I will carry to my grave.
I was of course devastated, on the day of her death still fully expecting her to be released shortly, and have yet to come to terms with all that has happened. Lindy was 49 – her birthday having come and gone whilst she was semi-conscious and half out of her mind on morphine and drugs of various kinds and being force fed through a multitude of tubes and apparatus.
I would, in closing, like to make 2 points.
The first is that we must all be aware that life is extremely fragile, that none of us are indestructible and that we can be taken at any time – whether we are feeling strong or not.
The second is that we should never put our faith in government institutions where the staff are harried, often inept, overworked and in the end merely civil servants with little or no time for the individual. If you want first class treatment for an ailment you need money, lots of it, and if you don’t have it then accept that you may not survive a government hospital.
I addressed three e-mails to the professor in charge of the cardio-thoracic department at Steve Biko Academic Hospital during Lindy’s time there – the first to question he and his staff’s abilities, and post-op care, the second to thank him when she seemed to be improving and the third after her death – and he never responded to any of them.
It would seem that – to government - we are just numbers, not patients, and that doctors do in fact bury their mistakes.
