ANGER AS TODDLER’S TISSUE FOR POST-MORTEM LOST

MBABANE - The parents of the two-year-old who died after being attended to at the Manzini Clinic are in angst after being told that the tissue samples taken for the post-mortem have disappeared.

The tissue was lost before the post-mortem could be conducted. 
They are angry at the thought and possibility that they may have to exhume their child’s remains for the tissue samples.
For a month, the parents of young Senkhosi Zwane, who died on August 11, 2014, have been eagerly awaiting the results of the post-mortem in order to get the answers to their many questions relating to the cause of the toddler’s death.

Closure

The parents of the toddler want closure and they believe they will get this through having a glimpse of the autopsy report.
It has turned out that the post-mortem has still not been performed because the human tissues which were extracted from the toddler’s body have gone missing and it is not clear as to what happened to them.

The tissues were extracted before the toddler could be buried in August.
As reported by this publication on August 16, 2014, the male toddler died a few hours after being examined at the Manzini Clinic.
He had been taken to the clinic by his mother after showing a few symptoms of epilepsy.
A CT scan of the child’s brain was undertaken on the day but unfortunately he died the same evening.

Angry

The family remains angry and blames the clinic for the child’s death.
There are claims that there might have been negligence on the part of the clinic which resulted in the child’s untimely demise.
However, The Clinic Group, through its Medical Director Dr Mark Mills, maintains that it also does not know what caused young Senkhosi’s death.

Narrating events of the day, the mother of the child, Sizakele Simelane said she decided to take Senkhosi to the Manzini Clinic after suspecting that he might be suffering from epilepsy.
She said the child would from time to time roll back his eye-balls and fall into complete silence and this is why she decided to visit the Manzini Clinic for check-ups.

After a few procedures at the Manzini Clinic, staffers administered a few injections on the child and he fell unconscious after several failed attempts.
The child remained unconscious for the rest of the afternoon, and evening.

Unconscious

The mother even boarded public transport with him while still unconscious.
It was only late in the evening that day that the parents decided to take the child back to Mbabane Clinic where he was certified dead.
Since then, the parents have been demanding answers from The Clinic management relating to what might have caused the death.

All along, the parents have been looking forward to the autopsy results but they reacted with shock on Monday this week when they were informed that the report was not available because the body tissue samples had disappeared.
The sad news was relayed to them by police officers at the Mbabane Police Station.

The father of the child, Velaphi Zwane, said they were shocked when they heard the news.
“For over a month, we have been looking forward to the post-mortem report and when we finally received that anticipated call from the police on Monday, we were happy – happy that we would get the answers we have been looking for.

“To our shock, the police informed us that the results were still not available because the body tissues had gone missing.
“We were perplexed and we still can’t believe it. How can body tissues just disappear? It’s difficult to believe,” he said.

Confirmed

In an interview, Police Assistant Information and Communications Officer Assistant Superintendent Khulani Mamba confirmed the matter.
“It is true that the tissue samples have gone missing. In fact, when the police asked the doctor about the tissue samples, he said he misplaced them.
“The police were not present when the tissue samples were extracted from the body, they only got the blood samples,” he said.

The post-mortem was supposed to be conducted at the Mbabane Government Hospital mortuary by a government pathologist.

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