/ 25 July 2012

Terminally ill patient’s family outraged by Selebi’s dialysis

Former police commissioner Jackie Selebi.
Former police commissioner Jackie Selebi.

The Times reported on Wednesday that Suzette Janse van Rensburg was told she had a month to live and would have died had her family not paid R66 000 on the kidney treatment at a private hospital.

Her son-in-law Martin Kried expressed shock at the news that Selebi was being treated at Pretoria's Steve Biko Academic Hospital while 82 patients were on the dialysis waiting list.

"Why is he getting better treatment than my mother or anybody else in the same boat?"

Janse van Rensburg, who suffers from chronic renal failure, approached Charlotte Maxeke hospital for dialysis but was told that there were 10 patients ahead of her on the waiting list.

She would only move up the list if other patients either died or received kidney transplants.

"I was saddened and depressed that the state could not do anything for me," Janse van Rensburg said.

The corruption-convicted Selebi was granted medical parole and released from prison on Friday. – Sapa