A 15-year-old Zimbabwean girl battling a serious liver condition has been told she can’t receive a life-saving transplant in South Africa because she’s not a citizen.
Vanessa Mafu is suffering from autoimmune hepatitis, a disease that has now severely damaged her liver. Doctors have confirmed she urgently needs a liver transplant to survive. But because she’s not South African, she’s been denied access to a donor liver from the country’s national list.
Her parents, desperate to save her, have taken the matter to the Johannesburg High Court. They’re asking the court to order Charlotte Maxeke Hospital to perform the transplant – a procedure they’re willing to fully pay for, even if it costs up to R1.5 million.
In court papers, Vanessa’s father, Vuyelwa Ncube, said doctors made it clear: the transplant is urgent. She could either receive a piece of liver from a living donor, usually a family member, or get a liver from a deceased donor who had consented to organ donation.
But when they asked about deceased donors, Ncube says they were told something heartbreaking – foreign nationals aren’t allowed on South Africa’s donor list, unless they have a valid visa or work permit.
Right now, Ncube is waiting to hear back about his application to renew his expired work permit. But time is not on their side.
“The delays in the processing of my documents, are not my own, but could have fatal consequences for my daughter,” he says in his affidavit.
He also says no one has shown him a single written law that says foreigners can’t get organ transplants in South Africa.
Their lawyer, Advocate Simba Chitando, didn’t mince his words. He called the hospital’s refusal to help Vanessa one of the “most cruel, inhuman, and blatantly xenophobic acts” by the state – especially against a child.
He said South Africa had “lost its moral, legal, and pan-African compass” and promised that his legal team would fight to give Vanessa a chance at life.
Making things worse, Chitando claims the hospital discharged Vanessa after they filed their legal case – a move he described as vindictive.
Now, the family is urgently looking for a new hospital to stabilise Vanessa while they wait for the court to decide. Chitando has called on Zimbabweans, especially in business, to help the family find and fund a new facility.
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The post South African Hospital Denies Liver Transplant to Zimbabwean Teen Over Her Nationality appeared first on iHarare News.
