Riot Hlatshwayo

Riot Hlatshwayo

Child protection in South Africa has suffered a blow.

A Mpumalanga doctor allegedly chased away two young victims of rape, aged two and seven, from a hospital on two separate occasions.

His rationale was that there was a lack of kits to examine raped children.

Two alleged rapists accused of molesting the girls might walk free because the doctor, who is known to Sowetan, allegedly refused to attend to the children on Wednesday and days earlier at the weekend.

In the latest incident on Wednesday, a family had to leave Tintswalo Hospital in Acornhoek with the two-year-old girl without her having been attended to.

The family, from Zoeknog village in Bushbuckridge, said they were sent from pillar to post because of this "cruel" doctor.

"If the bastard who raped my two-year-old daughter can walk free from the courts, I shall be forced to take the law into my own hands," said the girl's angry father yesterday.

The father said his 28-year-old neighbour on Wednesday sent his daughter to buy him a cigarette from a spaza shop and on her return locked her in his bedroom where he raped her.

When the girl returned home she told her mother that malume - uncle - had injured her.

The mother took her to Zoeknog Clinic where she was referred to Tintswalo Hospital.

Meanwhile, another family has accused the same doctor of refusing to help a seven-year-old rape victim for the same reason this past Saturday.

As a result the family did not open a rape case because they felt helpless after the doctor's alleged refusal to attend to their daughter.

Health and social services spokesman Dumisani Mlangeni said the matter would be investigated.