“When my family went to visit him he seemed fine, but then several days later they called to say he had died,” Jerome said.
“I wanted to gather everyone at home before I told them Bonokuhle had passed, and I went to the hospital to find out what happened.
“I went to the mortuary and saw his face like that … the rats had taken his lips and his nose. It is something I will never forget. I was so angry and demanded to see his whole body in case they had bitten him somewhere else.”
At Jerome’s insistence, the body was examined by state pathologists, who ruled that Bonokuhle had died of natural causes.
“Even so, we don’t know what happened to him,” Jerome said. “Before we could bury him we needed to cleanse his spirit after the horrible things that happened with his body.”
Jerome said he had met representatives of the hospital management in the days following his brother’s death and had been promised that an investigation would be conducted.
“They said they would tell me what they found and I have heard nothing since then. It feels like they didn’t care about his death because no one even came to the funeral. It was as if the rats had eaten something they were supposed to eat, they didn’t care.”
Ncumisa Mafunda, a spokeswoman for the provincial department of health, said a probe was under way.
“The demise of any individual is always a sad occasion. To this end, and without prejudice, the department wishes to convey its sincere condolences to the family,” she said.
