President Kgalema Motlanthe on Tuesday said he would consider a request for a probe into the medical parole granted to fraud convict Schabir Shaik if he received one.
The president was responding to a question on the matter on a visit to the Johannesburg Stock Exchange in Sandton.
He said no such submission had been received by the presidency but it would be considered if brought.
The former financial adviser to African National Congress (ANC) president Jacob Zuma was released on medical parole last week after serving two years and four months of a 15 year sentence. Much of his time had been spent at hospital. His release caused a public outcry with calls for Correctional Services Minister Ngconde Balfour to probe the matter further.
Shaik was released from the Durban Westville Prison last Tuesday.
This weekend opposition parties called for an investigation into Shaik’s release, culminating in a probe by the Health Professionals’ Council.
The KwaZulu-Natal Department of Health said on Tuesday Shaik is at risk of a stroke, a heart attack and blindness.
Health department spokesperson Leon Mbangwa said: ”Mr Shaik had been diagnosed with systematic hypertension as far back as 2001 at the age of 44 years.”
Shaik was first treated at the Westville Prison hospital and later transferred to St Augustines.
”Records indicate he has been in and out of hospital for the same condition and that treatment had been administered to him without any improvement,” said Mbangwa.
”Doctors treating him had not been satisfied with his improvement over the period of time.”
Mbangwa said in a letter to the department of correctional services in May, they (the doctors) concluded that Shaik be considered for medical parole, ”after conceiving that the conditions within the prison hospital were suboptimal to the kind of care required”.
”Mr Shaik remains at risk for a stroke, heart attack and blindness,” Mbangwa said.
Reports of a discharge in November, he said, was based on the fact that ”after every effort put to bear, Mr Shaik’s pressure remained refractory to medication”.
He noted that the department of health had provided services to Shaik at the request of the Department of Correctional Services, in line with their core function of providing ”equitable access to health care”.
Shaik had been seen as a new patient at the cardiac clinic of Chief Inkosi Albert Luthuli hospital on April 16 2007, Mbangwa said.
As a level four hospital, they provided acute care and only accepted referral cases.
”All patients that are referred to [Inkosi Albert Luthuli] are normally down referred or discharged back to the referring hospitals, hence, the discharge [term],” said Mbangwa.
”In this instance … the attending doctors have explained that they had advised the Department of Correctional Services to consider the down referral of Mr. Shaik, not on the basis that he was fit or well but for the department … to apply its mind based on the report.”
He said the management of Shaik ”as any other patient” was regulated by confidentiality and privacy.
Due to the confidentiality clause, Mbangwa said he could not disclose Shaik’s condition.
”It is ultimately the responsibility of the Department of Correctional Services to make a decision on what to do with the medical report submitted to it by the attendant doctors,” he said.
Shaik was convicted on two counts of corruption and one of fraud which, among other things, related to an alleged facilitation between Zuma and French arms company Thint. — Sapa