WINDHOEK – The family of a fourteen-year-old girl who is fighting for her life in the Windhoek Central Hospital after a pharmacist allegedly gave her ‘wrong’ antiretroviral drugs causing a reaction that almost cost her her life will take legal action against the Ministry of Health and Social Services.
Emilia Aino, the teenager’s mother said her daughter who cannot be named because she is a minor, started taking the ‘wrong medication’ on September 11, 2013 until she started getting ill starting September on 28. When New Era arrived at the hospital on Tuesday morning medical staff were attending to the girl, who was groaning in pain. She cannot speak well, because she has sores in the mouth. Also, sores could be seen around the eyes, including dark pimples all over her body. “She is not speaking properly… she is speaking like a baby,” said the girl’s distressed aunt Tuyenikumwe Ndaudika Dixon. She maintained that the pharmacist was careless in prescribing the wrong medication. “There is no way I am asking for pure water and you give me contaminated water,” Dixon angrily said alleging that the pharmacist ‘deliberately’ gave the girl the wrong medication. According to Aino her daughter who lives with her grandmother was given the ‘wrong’ antiretroviral tablets at the Katutura State Hospitals’ CDC (Centre for Disease Control). “She had gone to the ARV clinic to get her medication. When she started getting ill she told me that she had noticed that the ARV’s were different from what she normally gets, but because her name was written on the pack she thought that her medication had changed,” explained Aino.
The visibly distressed Aino said her daughter has been on ARV’s since she was three years old, but has never had a negative reaction, neither has she ever been admitted to a hospital until this incident. “I took good care of her and now someone just wants to take her away from me just like that. I do not feel good seeing my daughter like this, because she was just a normal child. The doctor who normally attends to her came to see her, but the pharmacist did not even bother to come and see her. The pharmacist should come and see how the child looks like, but that would be a lesson for him or her to carry out their work with all diligence,” lamented the girl’s mother. New Era tried in vain to get comment from the Ministry of Health and Social Services. Doctors at the CDC could not comment as they are not permitted to speak to the media.
By Alvine Kapitako