Publication: Sunday Independent Issued: Date: 2007-02-11 Reporter: Jeremy Gordin Reporter:

Shaik's Days in Private Hospital are Numbered

 

Publication 

Sunday Independent
Date

2007-02-11

Reporter

 Jeremy Gordin

Web Link

www.sundayindependent.co.za

 

Personal doctor and psychiatrist argue that 'suicidal' fraudster should not return to prison

Schabir Shaik's days in a private hospital ward are drawing to an end - even though a psychiatrist has said that the Durban businessman sent to prison for 15 years is "a severe suicide risk".

Professor AE Gangat, a Durban psychiatrist, wrote in a letter to the department of correctional services dated February 7 - parts of which were quoted verbatim in the Weekend Witness newspaper yesterday - that Shaik's stay in a private ward in Durban's St Augustine Hospital should be extended.

Today marks Shaik's 80th day at St Augustine's.

Gangat wrote that this was necessary because Shaik "entertains suicidal thoughts all the time. [Shaik] verbalised his feelings [to me] by stating: 'I believe that I would be better off dead than alive'.

"He thus poses a severe suicide risk, which can best be monitored in a private hospital, where nursing care is available 24 hours a day and where I can attend to emergency crisis intervention."

Gangat's letter, to Dr N Ndebele of the department of correctional services, was sent along with a letter, also quoted in the Natal Witness, from Shaik's physician, Dr AS Gaffoor.

Gaffoor also argued that his patient should be allowed to stay on at St Augustine's.

Gaffoor wrote: "In view of Shaik's recent very high pressure and new treatment, I feel it is dangerous to transfer him now. I would suggest I monitor Shaik's blood pressure and condition for another 10 days before you transfer him."

He also recommended that if Shaik was then taken back to Qalakabhusha Prison to serve his 15-year sentence, he should be initially admitted to the prison hospital.

"It seems pretty clear what is going on," said a source close to the Shaik camp yesterday.

"If you read between the lines, you can see that things are coming to a head and that probably another 10 days is about the best the Shaiks can hope for - which is why Gaffoor asks for it.

"After that, the Shaiks definitely don't want Schabir to be sent to, say, Durban Westville but to the prison hospital at Qalakabhusha. This is what they are fighting for. They want to be able to tell Schabir that he's not going to some hellhole."

The source said that the doctors as well as the Shaik brothers had had to deal with a "catch-22 situation" in relation to Schabir.

"On the one hand, his blood pressure would soar, but it could not be brought under control properly, because, whenever it was stabilised or coming close to stabilisation, it was not as though Schabir could look forward to a long holiday on the beach where he could recuperate. He had to look forward to going to prison - and of course the blood pressure would soar again."

In the parts from his letter that were published, Gangat seemed to be backing this view of the situation.

"During the period I have attended to [Shaik's] mood disturbance and anxiety state," Gangat wrote, "he has remained an in-patient at St Augustine's Hospital. His treatment thus far has consisted of … anti-depressants and mood stabilisers. His psychiatric diagnosis is severe depressive disorder plus generalised anxiety disorder."

Gangat went on to say that Shaik's "disturbed emotional state" was aggravating his hypertension and he urged Ndebele to bear in mind the kind of treatment that Shaik required.

"As a medical practitioner," he wrote, "I am certain that you are well aware of the comprehensive psychiatric treatment that consists not only of the psychotropic but also psychotherapeutic interventions, which I am administering.

"Such psychiatric intervention is not readily available in a correctional centre and it will not be possible for me to render such procedures as I am a busy psychiatrist running a full-time private practice."

Gangat recommended that Shaik remain at the private hospital where all his medical treatment, including treatment from Gaffoor and a neurologist, could be continued.

The doctors' correspondence was apparently in response to an investigation by the department into whether Shaik's condition makes it necessary for him to stay on in a private hospital instead of in jail.

The department said that it will "in due course" send its own specialist to assess Shaik.

With acknowledgements to Jeremy Gordin and Sunday Independent.


Imagine if every prisoner with more than a one year sentence threatened suicide and demanded permanent hospitalisation in a private medical facility.

Then the prisons would be three quarters empty and the private hospitals would be laughing all the way to the bank.