Help is finally on the way for a woman who has been bedridden for almost two years after her body swelled to gigantic proportions and she was unable to move.
Wiping away tears, Ntombizanele Mpambani, 49, made a heart-wrenching plea to the Daily Dispatch this week.
This reporter was visiting her simple house on an Alexandria dairy farm to try and get her expert medical advice and a disability grant after she was diagnosed with worsening elephantiasis.
“I want help for this situation. I was not born like this,” said Mpambani.
Lying flat on her back in a double bed and unable to move, a tearful Mpambani described the daily humiliation she has had to suffer by having to rely on her husband Mzwakhe and other family members to wash and help her go to the toilet in a bucket.
“My husband has to help me do everything. I feel so hopeless,’’ said Mpambani.
“I feel like a newborn baby. The only time I leave my bed is when I go to see the doctor.”
Although doctors and social workers are aware of her plight, the mother of two said she has been battling to get a disability grant and relies on the goodwill of her former employers, farmers Werner and Estelle Buchner, to survive.
“I first started feeling sick in 2004. My legs felt heavy and tired and one day I fell down while walking,” she said.
She was rushed to hospital.
“People started calling me skilpad because I battled to walk. Since then things have got worse and I have been stuck in my bed since February 2013.”
Over the past 10 years, her employers have been paying her R400 a month to help her survive.
Fortunately, her husband, sons and brother still work on the farm and she was not thrown out of her home. In desperation, Mpambani recently contacted Khula Community Development Project director Petros Majola – who heads an NGO that deals with children’s rights issues in the Eastern Cape – pleading for help.
Majola visited her and wrote to the social development department for intervention and help to get a disability grant.
According to Majola, he did not get a satisfactory response and decided to call the Daily Dispatch instead.
“Her situation is so desperate. I cried in my car after I visited and heard her story. Although things are bad, she has not given up hope.”
Majola said it seemed pleas for help had fallen on deaf ears and the had failed to properly help her, despite local social workers being aware of her plight.
Earlier this year, Mpambani spent a month and a half in Settlers Hospital, where she was again diagnosed with worsening elephantiasis, which leads to massive swelling of the arms, legs and other parts of the body.
But things changed when the Dispatch contacted provincial health spokesman Sizwe Kupelo for comment, and he promised to visit Mpambani with social workers and human settlements department officials to see how they could help.
Although Kupelo claimed elephantiasis cannot be cured, he said he hoped expert intervention could help bring some relief for the bedridden grandmother.
Social development spokesman Gcobani Maswana confirmed they would visit and help Mpambani secure a disability grant.
He pleaded for kind-hearted
experts and benefactors to get involved.
“It is very bad. There must be an intervention.” — davidm@dispatch.co.za
Help finally for burden of illness
Wiping away tears, Ntombizanele Mpambani, 49, made a heart-wrenching plea to the Daily Dispatch this week.
This reporter was visiting her simple house on an Alexandria dairy farm to try and get her expert medical advice and a disability grant after she was diagnosed with worsening elephantiasis.
“I want help for this situation. I was not born like this,” said Mpambani.
Lying flat on her back in a double bed and unable to move, a tearful Mpambani described the daily humiliation she has had to suffer by having to rely on her husband Mzwakhe and other family members to wash and help her go to the toilet in a bucket.
“My husband has to help me do everything. I feel so hopeless,’’ said Mpambani.
“I feel like a newborn baby. The only time I leave my bed is when I go to see the doctor.”
Although doctors and social workers are aware of her plight, the mother of two said she has been battling to get a disability grant and relies on the goodwill of her former employers, farmers Werner and Estelle Buchner, to survive.
“I first started feeling sick in 2004. My legs felt heavy and tired and one day I fell down while walking,” she said.
She was rushed to hospital.
“People started calling me skilpad because I battled to walk. Since then things have got worse and I have been stuck in my bed since February 2013.”
Over the past 10 years, her employers have been paying her R400 a month to help her survive.
Fortunately, her husband, sons and brother still work on the farm and she was not thrown out of her home. In desperation, Mpambani recently contacted Khula Community Development Project director Petros Majola – who heads an NGO that deals with children’s rights issues in the Eastern Cape – pleading for help.
Majola visited her and wrote to the social development department for intervention and help to get a disability grant.
According to Majola, he did not get a satisfactory response and decided to call the Daily Dispatch instead.
“Her situation is so desperate. I cried in my car after I visited and heard her story. Although things are bad, she has not given up hope.”
Majola said it seemed pleas for help had fallen on deaf ears and the had failed to properly help her, despite local social workers being aware of her plight.
Earlier this year, Mpambani spent a month and a half in Settlers Hospital, where she was again diagnosed with worsening elephantiasis, which leads to massive swelling of the arms, legs and other parts of the body.
But things changed when the Dispatch contacted provincial health spokesman Sizwe Kupelo for comment, and he promised to visit Mpambani with social workers and human settlements department officials to see how they could help.
Although Kupelo claimed elephantiasis cannot be cured, he said he hoped expert intervention could help bring some relief for the bedridden grandmother.
Social development spokesman Gcobani Maswana confirmed they would visit and help Mpambani secure a disability grant.
He pleaded for kind-hearted
experts and benefactors to get involved.
“It is very bad. There must be an intervention.” — davidm@dispatch.co.za
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