On the morning of January 24 siblings Riley and Jordan waved goodbye to their grandmother and made the daily commute from their Klipspruit West home to a crèche nearby. Hours later they were in hospital being treated for listeriosis. They were among nine toddlers from the Childcare Orientation Centre who fell ill, having eaten breakfast provided at the school.
The toddlers were taken to hospital vomiting uncontrollably while others were soiling themselves with diarrhoea. Several had begun to feel ill the day before after returning from the crèche. Celeste Oersen, Riley and Jordan's grandmother, describes that day as her worst nightmare and one she will never forget. "It was terrifying. I have never felt so helpless in my life. You see them lying there crying, asking for help, but there is nothing you can do," Oersen told this newspaper this week.
In December last year Eileen Drever was living alone and unassisted at the Flame Lily retirement complex in Queensburgh, southwest of Durban. She described herself as having felt perfectly normal and, at 75 years old, was able to drive herself around Durban. Now, just over two months later, Drever is wheelchair-bound and is being cared for at the same facility. "I've completely lost my balance. I want to get up out of this wheelchair, but a few times when I've tried to walk I've fallen, so now I have to have someone with me all the time."
It started on the morning of December 28. It began as any normal morning for her, but hours later she started feeling feverish. Her whole body began to ache. Paramedics were called and she was taken to the Westville Hospital. Doctors at the hospital confirmed the presence of listeria.Luleka Ndamase, from Duncan Village outside East London, is back at home after being discharged from hospital on Thursday. She had spent over a month at Frere Hospital. She was taken there when she started vomiting and complaining of a runny tummy after eating chicken from a local supermarket. That chicken is suspected of having contained the listeria bacteria.
These are but a few stories and human faces of the listeriosis outbreak, South Africa's latest healthcare tragedy. The ones mentioned here are lucky to be alive; 183 others who contracted listeriosis between January 2017 and last week are dead.
One of them was Ambatha Abraham who was only six days old when she died. Her mother Lindelwa gave birth to Ambatha last month.
Lindelwa's joy was short-lived. Two days after being discharged from hospital, she noticed that her baby girl was struggling to breathe. She took her to the clinic and mother and child were transferred to Frere Hospital. By this time the infant was vomiting. Six days after her birth, Ambatha became one the latest victims of listeriosis - a disease passed on by her mother from the polony she had eaten during her pregnancy.
Last Sunday the Department of Health said that its scientists had traced the source of the present outbreak to an Enterprise Foods facility and a Rainbow Foods facility. Immediately the blame game erupted. Tiger Brands, the owners of the cold-meats manufacturer, refused to take responsibility for the deaths. Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi denied ever accusing Enterprise Foods of being responsible for the deaths.
While the Health Department and Enterprise Foods seem more interested in the back-and-forth ping-pong they are playing, our interest is justice and dignity for the victims of this tragedy.
What these two institutions forget is that those who died in this tragedy were not just statistics. They were human. They had ambitions. They had aspirations. They had lives to live. What their families want to see is for those responsible to be brought to book as soon as possible, and for this not to turn into another Life Esidimeni episode...