Durban man wants answers from hospital after wife's death
A Phoenix man says he's been left with no answers months after his wife, who was admitted to hospital after feeling weak, died allegedly of a brain haemorrhage days later.
Fifty-two-year-old Mary Shunmugam was admitted to Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Hospital last November after not being able to eat.
Her husband, Lionel Shunmugam, says he was not allowed into the ward due to Covid-19 protocols.
He says during the first few phone calls he made to the ward, he was told his wife was stable.
Shunmugan says on the third day, the hospital informed him she had been diagnosed with sepsis of the lungs.
He says when he was allowed a visit, he found his wife on a respirator and also noticed an injury to her head.
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He says when he inquired where the injury had come from, he didn't receive a response.
Mary Shunmugam passed away a day later. Shunmugan says the hospital insisted she had died due to the sepsis.
"When I went to pick up her body, I then requested the death certificate - which the hospital refused to give me. No one in the hospital was prepared to give me the death certificate.
"I got involved with the State pathologist and requested a post mortem and they established that my wife died of a brain haemorrhage due to a multiple skull fracture.
"The hospital didn't know this and when I asked them as well 'How did her skull get fractured?' they come back to the same excuse they gave me which is she died of sepsis of the lungs which was "We don't know how her skull got fractured and the file does not say anything."'
Shumugam says he still hasn't been told how his wife sustained the head injury.
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He has opened a police case.
Spokesperson for the KZN Health Department, Ntokozo Maphisa says the Department cannot discuss confidential matters pertaining to clinical management of patients.
Maphisa says there has been formal engagement regarding the matter with Shunmugam's family.
The department says it's relayed condolences to the family.
