Bosasa former chief operating officer Angelo Agrizzi, accused of corruption and bribery, spent a single night in jail before being transferred to a private hospital when he became ill and SA's biggest state hospital admitted it did not have available the ICU or HCU facilities needed.
Agrizzi was moved from Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital to a private facility because his health had deteriorated and he needed specialised care. His lawyer told the media that Agrizzi was now unconscious in ICU at the private hospital.
Bongekile Macupe reporter at the Mail & Guardian writes that the treating state doctor indicated that Agrizzi needed ICU or high care facilities urgently as his condition was worsening and that “they didn’t have the facilities to treat him”.
The department of correctional services says the law provides for an inmate to be moved to a private hospital, at their own cost. But Macupe writes, what should scare the people of South Africa is that the biggest hospital in not only South Africa but all of Africa, and the third-largest in the world, says it does not have facilities to treat a person that needs permanent oxygen or whatever else Agrizzi is sick with.
How is this possible? How does it happen? What, then, of poor prisoners in Sun City, who cannot afford private hospital fees? What does it mean for the thousands, if not millions, of patients who use this hospital to receive care, some even travelling from other provinces?
Macupe writes it is quite alarming to learn of this revelation by Bara during a pandemic that attacks the lungs and makes it difficult to breathe. How can it be business as usual when we now know that this hospital does not have the right facilities to cater for poor sick people? It does not make sense. It is absurd.
If indeed what the doctor told Agrizzi’s lawyer and family is true, and is not some cover-up to ensure that he received private care, this is the clearest indication of what corruption does to a country.
[link url="https://mg.co.za/opinion/2020-10-22-agrizzi-too-ill-to-be-treated-at-bara/"]Full Mail & Guardian report[/link]