JOHANNESBURG, South Africa – A 15-year-old Zimbabwean teenage girl with a life-threatening auto-immune disease has been told she does not qualify for a liver transplant from a South African donor.
Vanessa Mafu’s desperate parents have now filed an urgent application at the Johannesburg High Court seeking to compel Charlotte Maxeke Hospital to perform the life-saving transplant which could cost up to R1,5 million. The parents said they are prepared to meet the cost.
Vanessa’s father Vuyelwa Ncube says in an affidavit that doctors treating his daughter advised that she has auto immune hepatitis, which has now caused liver cirrhosis.
“She requires a liver transplant as soon as possible to save her life,” Ncube says.
The family was advised of their options: they could receive a liver from a donor who has died and there is consent for organ transplants for medical purposes, or she could get a a portion of a liver from a donor who is alive, usually a family member.
But there was bad news. The doctors told Ncube that there is a national priority list for recipients of an organ from a donor, and that “Zimbabwean nationals are not eligible to receive an organ from a deceased South African donor.”
Ncube had to have a valid visa or work permit for her daughter to be added to that priority list.
Ncube will tell the High Court during the urgent hearing expected within days that he applied for an extension of his expired work permit, and is awaiting the outcome
“The delays in the processing of my documents, are not my own, but could have fatal consequences for my daughter,” he says in his affidavit.
Even then, he says, he has legal advice that his status in the country does not preclude the hospital from its obligations “which require them to preserve my daughter’s life.”
He added: “I was not provided with any written laws that preclude a Zimbabwean national from receiving a liver transplant from a deceased South African donor, or a donor of another nationality.”
The family’s lawyer Advocate Simba Chitando said Vanessa’s situation is “extremely urgent because it is a life saving procedure, but it is also one of the most cruel, inhuman, and blatantly xenophobic acts perpetuated by the state against a child.”
“It is symbolic of the fact that South Africa has lost its moral, legal, and pan-African compass. My clients remain defiant under the circumstances, and the legal team I’m leading will do everything in our power to save this beautiful Zimbabwean girl’s life,” he told ZimLive.
Chitando said Charlotte Maxeke Hospital had, since their filing of the court application, vindictively discharged Vanessa.
He made a plea to Zimbabweans, especially the business community, to chip in and help the family secure a new hospital to keep Vanessa stabilised awaiting a transplant.
Do you wish to help? Please e-mail lawyer Chitando at the following address: [email protected]
