Mom given two weeks to live February 18 2010 at 01:40PM
By Angelique Arde
Special Correspondent
A Mitchell's Plain woman is fighting for her life after being pronounced not eligible for life-saving dialysis treatment in a public hospital.
According to her doctor, the 24-year-old single mother who lives in a shack could be dead in as little as two weeks unless she receives treatment.
Last week, Busiswa Danxa was turned down for treatment by Groote Schuur Hospital's renal replacement programme because she is not a strong candidate for a kidney transplant.
Danxa is suffering from advanced renal failure and tuberculosis which counts against her as an applicant for a kidney transplant.
Her doctor, Debbie Maughan, said her patient's "social circumstances" and the fact that she had advanced kidney failure and TB, had been cited as reasons for the rejection of her application for dialysis.
Maughan took Danxa's case on appeal, but was not able to get her patient admitted for treatment.
Sent home to die, Danxa's only hope now is if an individual or a company is willing to pay for her treatment at a private hospital.
Once a patient has been rejected for treatment in one government hospital, they have been rejected for treatment in all similar facilities because the same selection criteria apply.
"I'm scared," a weeping Danxa said.
"I don't want to leave my baby."
Professor Brian Rayner, head of Groote Schuur's nephrology and hypertension division, described the young mother's case as tragic.
As head of the unit that decides on who gets renal replacement therapy and who doesn't, Rayner and his colleagues live with the anguish that goes with making such life-and-death calls.
"We're struggling. Every week we're faced with tragic cases," he said.
"This is the reality of provisional public health.
"The provincial government decides how to allocate re-sources and that determines the number of patients we can treat."
He explained that his unit assessed about eight patients a week, but selected only one or two for treatment.
In addition to funding constraints, the situation was compounded by a critical shortage of kidney specialists - "between 50 and 60" - and too few technologists.
Chronic kidney disease is a common and growing global problem, according to Rayner.
While accurate statistics were difficult to come by, he said, it had been estimated that up to 30 000 South Africans suffered from end-stage kidney disease every year.
"And in South Africa, death rates from end-stage renal disease have risen by 68 percent between 1999 and 2006, according to a recent report in (medical journal) The Lancet," he said, adding that "none of these patients should have died".
Rayner's words offer cold comfort to people like Danxa, who are helplessly staring death in the face.
"It's not fair," she said.
Rayner agreed that this sort of policy would have tragic consequences "until we can provide care to everyone".
"Yes, you can say it's unfair. We do need greater provision of treatment at all levels. But for now there's a limit to what we can do because it's enormously expensive care," he said.
While Maughan understands the situation, she finds it unacceptable.
"The irony is that Busi lost her appeal on the day marking the 20th anniversary of Nelson Mandela's release from prison; a day that symbolises freedom for all South Africans.
"But this hard-fought freedom means nothing if people are dying of preventable diseases because they're poor and the system isn't serving them," she said.
Danxa is trying to maintain a fighting spirit.
"I don't want to lose hope. I'm praying," she said.
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