Susan Purn
The almost complete collapse of medical care for prisoners, and the dangerous circumstances under which a district surgeon serving Leeuwkop prison was forced to work, saw her quitting the position last week with only 24 hours’ notice.
Dr Liz Levendig, a former member of the Detainees’ Parents Support Committee in the 1980s, says what is happening to prisoners in need of medical care is a “tragedy”.
Levendig, who served at Leeuwkop for seven years, says the final straw was when she was told that a warder was no longer available to escort her during her rounds.
Since mid-1998, no Leeuwkop prisoner is allowed to get treatment at a private hospital and state hospitals are turning inmates away because of overcrowding.
One of the prisoners affected by the chaotic state of medical care at Leeuwkop is convicted killer and former Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging brigadier Phil Kloppers, who has been wheelchair-bound since he was allegedly tortured by police after his arrest in 1994.
He takes 18 tablets a day, mostly for pain. An essential high-risk operation to relieve his pain has been turned down by prison authorities.
Kloppers said he was told there is no money to pay for the operation, but correctional services representative Rudi Potgieter denied this was the case. Potgieter said the area manager at Leeuwkop told him that Levendig had said Kloppers did not need the operation.
Potgieter also said a recent investigation by the department’s legal representative, advocate Leon Kleinschmidt, into alleged human rights abuses at Leeuwkop found that Kloppers was receiving medical care and medicine as prescribed.
Levendig says she is not aware of any investigation and has never met Kleinschmidt. “How was it possible to check on somebody’s medical care if you don’t speak to his doctor?” she asked. “The operation was turned down due the fact that funds are limited …”
The pharmacy at Leeuwkop was recently closed for three weeks. Patients had to rely on relatives to bring them medication – although this is forbidden by prison regulations.