By Aarti J Narsee

The 10-day journey from war-torn Somalia to South Africa was tough, but it was the start of a better life for the 12-year-old.

Or so she thought.

Two weeks after arriving in Pretoria, the girl lies in a hospital bed, hooked to oxygen and writhing in pain. Her heart beats so loudly it can be heard across the room and its rapid beating is visible through her thin chest.

Today, with the help of nongovernmental organisation Lawyers for Human Rights, the girl and her brother, 26, are approaching the high court in Pretoria to force the Steve Biko Academic Hospital to urgently admit her to its paediatric cardiology ward for “assessment and treatment” and hopefully to save her life.

Despite being diagnosed with a serious heart condition, the hospital has refused to perform the surgery to insert a heart valve, which she desperately needs, unless her family coughs up a R250 000 deposit.

The girl, whose unemployed mother remains in Mogadishu and whose father is dead, planned to live with her brother in Pretoria, where he runs a small shop.

But just a day after she arrived in the country on July 4, she collapsed and was rushed to hospital – before she could apply for refugee status or an asylum seeker permit.

Pretoria’s Kalafong Hospital admitted her, but advised she needed surgery at the bigger Steve Biko hospital.

However, the latter refused to admit her – unless she produced the necessary documentation or paid the hefty deposit – and she was sent back to Kalafong, where she remains gravely ill.

There, her brother says, she is subjected to nurses telling her to “stop vomiting” as she is “making a mess”, while she begs to go back home.

The girl’s brother says he was also told by a doctor that “people like me” use his tax money for medical treatment and that he should “take this child back to her mother in Somalia”.

“I am concerned that this xenophobic attitude is represented in the hospital’s refusal to give my sister the life-saving surgery she needs.”

The urgent court case has been brought against Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi, the Health Department’s director-general, the Gauteng Health Department and MEC, as well as the Steve Biko hospital and its chief operating officer.

Yesterday Lawyers for Human Rights said the respondents had advised they would be opposing the matter.

Gauteng Health Department spokesman Prince Hamnca, speaking on behalf of the respondents, refused to comment, saying the matter was “sub judice”.

The girl’s brother is adamant the case is urgent and he doesn’t know if his little sister will be alive for much longer.

In court papers, he said: “The condition which my sister is in, and the rapid deterioration of her health, is noticeable and terrifying to me.”

He said she was in constant pain and lies in bed “moaning and clutching her stomach and chest”, was unable to eat and “barely speaks”.

The siblings have also asked the court to order that the deposit be waived and that the Health Minister’s policy of requiring a deposit before providing emergency treatment to undocumented children be declared unconstitutional.

Speaking to The Times yesterday the girl’s 26-year-old cousin said it felt as though the hospital was “waiting for the child to die”.

Source: Times Live