Pumza Fihlani

Pumza Fihlani

One of the saddest moments in a woman's life is losing a child. So when Nobuhle Ndlebe's twins died shortly after birth little did she know that their deaths were only the beginning of her pain.

This is what she says: "I gave birth to two beautiful boys last year. They were tiny because they had been born prematurely, but they were still beautiful in my eyes.

"They had to be kept in an incubator. I would visit them every day without fail. Sadly, both my babies did not make it.

"It took the hospital a week to tell me that the boys had died. When I wanted their corpses I was told they were already in the hospital's mortuary.

"When I went to the mortuary they gave me a wrong baby. I told them that one of the twins was not mine but they insisted it was.

"They tried to force me on four different occasions to accept a baby that wasn't mine.

"I later discovered that they had given my child to a family in KwaZulu-Natal. The woman and I had given birth at Natalspruit Hospital at the same time.

"After months of giving me the run-around, the hospital finally admitted to the mix-up and promised to have the baby in KwaZulu-Natal returned to me. I signed an exhumation order in July this year. My baby was only exhumed in October.

"I have waited for more than a year to bury my twins. I now have to wait for DNA results to confirm what I already know, that the baby which was exhumed is mine. While I wait for the hospital to give me the results, my other child is decomposing in another mortuary.

"I can't bury one without the other. My culture will not allow it. I will not do it. I can't put into words the pain those people have caused me."