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'Shaik Is Not Dying’ |
| Publication |
The Times |
| Date | 2009-03-11 |
| Reporter | Borrie La Grange |
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Web Link |
‘I personally was responsible for discharging him months ago’
Shaik’s failure to respond to treatment ‘bizzarre’
Condition not much different from other SA
hypertensives
While President Kgalema Motlanthe and Health Minister Barbara Hogan
are gearing up to investigate fraudster Schabir Shaik’s release last week on
medical parole, a leading cardiologist has said his
condition cannot be described as terminal.
Shaik sentenced in 2005 to 15 years in prison for corruption and fraud
relating to his financial dealings with ANC president Jacob Zuma spent most of
his 28-month incarceration in Durban’s Inkosi Albert Luthuli Central Hospital
being treated for chronic hypertension and depression.
Following Shaik’s release, Correctional Services Minister Ngconde Balfour said
he had been paroled because he was in “the final phase of his terminal
condition”.
But the Sunday Times reported at the weekend that the head of the cardiology
unit at the hospital, Professor DP Naidoo, said Shaik was discharged four months
ago. Yet he remained in the ward until he was paroled last week.
Naidoo told Sunday Times journalist Megan Power: “This is something the whole
staff in the department are aware of we discharged Mr Shaik some time ago. He
stayed in Albert Luthuli and that was beyond my control … that was at the hands
of hospital management and the department of correctional services.
“I personally was responsible for discharging him months ago.”
Power asked: “And that was because he was well
enough to be discharged?”
Naidoo answered: “Yes.”
On Monday, a report on Shaik dated September 2008 signed by Naidoo and
his deputy, Dr Sajidah Khan was leaked to the media.
In the report, to the head of Westville Prison’s Medium B section, where Shaik
was temporarily incarcerated, Naidoo recommended Shaik’s release on medical
parole seven months ago.
“Despite our best efforts, Mr Shaik’s [blood] pressure remains refractory to
medication … He remains at risk for a stroke, heart attack and blindness.
Perhaps psychological factors related to his incarceration have contributed to
physical ailments … [Shaik] is undergoing psychotherapy/counselling by the
psychologist … We cannot keep him in hospital indefinitely and since prison
authorities are reluctant to manage him at the prison hospital, where conditions
are sub-optimal, we recommend he be considered for medical parole.”
But a cardiologist at one of the country’s academic hospitals, who asked not to
be named, analysed the leaked report and concluded that Shaik’s condition was
“nothing exceptional”.
“It is clear from the report that [Shaik] suffers from severe uncontrolled
hypertension. But it is not much different from other hypertensive patients in
South Africa . The report does not state that there is a terminal illness and
there is no reason to suspect it,” he
said.
A terminal illness is classified medically as a condition with
no cure available, which leads to a
likelihood of death within six months.
If Shaik’s condition were terminal, the cardiologist reasoned, the doctors would
have realised this when the report was drawn up six months ago.
The cardiologist said that, given that Shaik was diagnosed with hypertension in
2001, as mentioned in the report, it appeared from the assessment that
he was no closer to death than he was when the
report was drawn up.
He found Naidoo’s recommendation that Shaik be considered for medical parole “unusual”.
“It is a bit odd to include it *1. They
actually say he only has to take the medication and they cannot do more for him.
But that is no reason to send him home,”
he said.
Dr Rob Routier, a Johannesburg cardiologist, described as “bizarre” Shaik’s
failure to respond to the extensive list of 10 hypertension medications he was
prescribed.
He said: “ I have spoken to several colleagues, and they have seldom, if ever,
seen that many medications prescribed without an improvement in a patient’s
condition.
“It is unusual that he has not responded to the medication.”
Routier said the question now arose whether Shaik
had been diligently taking the medication prescribed.
Another Johannesburg cardiologist, Dr Joe McKibbin, agreed.
He added that it did not make much difference where a patient took the
medication at home, in a prison or elsewhere.
“As long as the patient’s blood pressure is monitored, and he takes his
medication and sees a specialist once a month.
“I don’t see how stress influences his condition. Hypertension is a
physiological condition,” McKibbin said.
Motlanthe responded yesterday to opposition parties and members of the public
clamouring for an investigation of Shaik’s medical parole.
He told reporters: “They haven’t submitted such a request [to probe Shaik’s
parole] as yet. We will consider it once it is submitted.”
The health minister is now in possession of a report from the Inkosi Albert
Luthuli Central Hospital detailing Shaik’s medical history.
Hogan’s spokeswoman, Ayesha Ismail, confirmed last night that the KwaZulu-Natal
department of health had forwarded the report to Hogan after it received a
request from the Human Rights Commission for an investigation into Shaik’s
medical parole.
The Health Professions’ Council of SA has announced that it is investigating the
conduct of the three doctors who recommended that Shaik be paroled.
United Democratic Movement leader Bantu Holomisa told The Times yesterday that
the “saga needs an inquiry *2.”
“Let the office of the president take the nation into its confidence by
appointing a commission,” he said.
Democratic Alliance spokesman on health, James Selfe, said: “ Is he in the last
stages of his illness or not? That has not been answered by either the medical
report or the correctional services.”
“We will be pursuing the matter and we would be seeking access to information in
order to get to the bottom of this case,” Selfe said.
Additional reporting Taschica Pillay, Dominic Mahlangu and Sapa
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With acknowledgements to
Borrie La Grange and The Times.