Gauteng Health is facing a multimillion-rand damages claim after doctors told a car accident victim home to 'get up and walk home', not realising he had a severe spinal injury. The plaintiff is now a paraplegic.
According to a Pretoria News report, Meka Lukas Nkabine, 66, is now rendered a paraplegic, and medical experts told the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, that he would never walk again.
The report says his experience started on 29 December, 2009 when he was involved in a car accident. He was removed from the scene by ambulance and taken to Natalspruit Hospital in Katlehong. He was admitted to the casualty department where he lay on a stretcher, waiting to be attended to. Nkabine said the staff eventually glanced over him and told him to “get up from the stretcher and walk home”. He said he was not examined to ascertain what his injuries were.
The report says Nkabine was unable to get up from the stretcher. As he could barely lift himself, some of the nurses instructed his family to assist them in placing him on another bed. The nurses eventually agreed to get the opinion of a doctor, to confirm their opinion that there was nothing wrong with him. Nkabine said an inadequate examination was carried out and he was once again told to go home as they could not find anything wrong with him. He was at the time also examined by an orthopaedic medical officer, who found nothing to be wrong. He said his family, however, insisted that he be transferred to Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital. There it was established that he had a spinal injury.
The report says Nkabine blamed the fact that he was now a paraplegic on the staff at Natalspruit Hospital. He stated that the staff found that there was nothing wrong with him, yet he had suffered a serious spinal injury. This could have been prevented, he said, if he had received the necessary care and treatment. Nkabine complained that no radiological examination or any other examination had been performed to localise the spinal cord damage. He said he should not have been moved at all in light of his injuries. The fact that he was moved resulted in his being a paraplegic, he said.
The report says he has claimed more than R2m in damages at this stage for the fact that he will be wheelchair-bound for the rest of his life.
The report says the hospital denied any negligence in response to his allegations. It admitted that he was in casualty after the car accident and that he had complained of pain in his lower limbs. It was said that an X-ray was done, which revealed he had fractured his spine. The hospital said several medical examinations were done before he was transferred to Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital.
It was said that while at Natalspruit Hospital, he was treated with reasonable care and skill by the doctors and nurses on duty, “given the provincial authorities’ financial and other resources constraints”.
[link url="https://www.iol.co.za/pretoria-news/r2m-claim-after-road-accident-20069107"]Pretoria News report[/link]