Staff reporter
Maseru – A nine-year-old girl who was taken to Senorita Nhlabathi Hospital with an epilepsy- and diabetes-related health scare allegedly returned home in a worse condition after being administered expired drips.
The child reportedly vomited blood shortly after receiving the treatment on Sunday, 7 December 2025.
According to her aunt, whose name is withheld to protect the child, Thato arrived at the hospital at around 10:00 but was only attended to shortly before midnight, almost 14 hours later.
“She arrived around 10:00 and the doctor gave her two drips. When we checked the expiry dates, one had expired in April and the other in October,” said the aunt.
She said after the second drip was administered, the child began vomiting blood.
“We asked that she be attended to immediately, but we were told the doctor was busy assisting with a labour case and that we should wait until Monday,” she added.
The family then requested that *Thato be transferred to Moroka Hospital in Thaba Nchu. However, when they asked that she be discharged so they could take her there themselves, hospital staff allegedly threatened them with police.
Thato was later attended to, and doctors reportedly discovered that she had developed an intestinal infection, allegedly as a result of the expired drips.
It is further alleged that nurses ignored the child’s mother when she raised concerns that the drips had passed their expiry dates.
The child was discharged on Wednesday.
Watch Joyce “Pretenders” Mathae, Free State Premier and Viceroy Mahlatsi, MEC for Health run up and down, flooding hospitals chasing clout searching for children born on the 25 but when it comes to services they are missing in action.
Attempts to obtain comment from Priscilla Sekonyela, spokesperson for the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA), were unsuccessful by the time of publication.
*Thato not her real name.
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