Makwena Segoba (right) and her mother Regina Mogotlane want the body of baby exhumed
WHEN nurses at WF Knobel Hospital in Ga-Mma-Basotho, Limpopo told her that the baby she was carrying would be stillborn, all she wanted was to give birth, bury the baby and move on with her life.
But moving on from the pain of losing the child has been a mountain to climb for Makwena Segoba (28) and her family. That’s because her child’s body was mistakenly given to another family.
Makwena, from Ga-Ngwetsana Village in Moletjie, said when her baby was stillborn in August, she didn’t have money to bury it. “The officials at the hospital told me they would only give me the body if we brought a coffin.”
It took her until last month to raise the money, and when she arrived with a coffin she was told that her baby’s body had been given to another family.
“I want that body exhumed so that my family can bury the body,” she said. “The DNA results came back and the baby being kept at the hospital is not mine.”
Limpopo Health spokesman Thabiso Teffo said: “We were in talks with both families and arranged with the municipality for the body to be exhumed while our investigations are underway. But the whole process was brought to a standstill when the other family, who buried the baby, took the matter to the lawyers. That’s why this matter is dragging on.”
