Two months in various state hospitals in North West and Gauteng changed a healthy pensioner of Lichtenburg into an ”empty shell” and he probably will never walk again, News24 reported on Tuesday.
Des Farrell (72) was admitted to the General De la Rey hospital in Lichtenburg on July 23 with a broken leg.
On September 21, he was discharged from Tshepong hospital in Klerksdorp with mild brain damage and many bedsores, some already malignant. He was malnourished and dehydrated, and bleeding from his nose and anus.
But, the fracture in his left thigh had still not knitted.
Farrell’s wife, Bertha, said she cannot believe that her husband, who lived a normal life until 11 weeks ago, is now an invalid who has better care in a home for the aged than in hospital.
Since she admitted him, out of desperation, to the Lichthuis old-age home on September 21, his condition has improved dramatically.
Two weeks after Farrell fell and broke his leg in the couple’s bathroom, he was taken for the first time to an operating theatre in Bophelong hospital, Mafikeng, to repair the fracture.
However, the anaesthetist refused to allow the operation to proceed because Farrell’s heartbeat was irregular.
His wife said: ”I waited outside the theatre. When they pushed him out, he and the sheet were full of faeces that had already dried. They never even cleaned him.”
The weakened patient was transferred from Bophelong to Tshepong hospital in Klerksdorp for ”specialist attention”.
A brain scan was done there, but no one could read it.
A doctor at Chris Hani Baragwanath hospital looked at it later and found Farrell had had three mild strokes in the previous weeks.
Farrell was sent back from Chris Hani Baragwanath to Tshepong hospital after doctors were satisfied his heart problems had been treated satisfactorily for the leg fracture to be repaired under an epidural anaesthetic.
At Tshepong hospital, Farrell — whose condition was seemingly getting worse by the day — was placed in a general ward.
His wife said she and her married daughter, Linda van Rooyen, who lives in Klerksdorp, had to make sure that he got enough food and water.
Nursing staff apparently were surprised when Farrell’s wife asked them to discharge her husband, because the operation to repair the fracture ”might happen next week”.
”The worst of everything that happened was the slowness. There was no haste to operate on my husband and release him.
”It seemed almost as if the reasoning was that he already was old, so why bother?”
Caregiver Louise Hayward at the Lichthuis old-age home said Farrell had ”feared” her when she first came near him in her uniform.
Farrell’s wife said the retirement home is like ”an oasis in the desert” after their experiences at the various hospitals.
North West’s health department has not responded yet to requests for comment on Farrell’s ordeals in the province’s hospitals. — Sapa