Family still mourn death of parents from Covid-19

As SA reached a grim milestone of recording more than 100,000 Covid-19 deaths this week, a Pretoria woman recalled the time she lost both her parents, one a nurse, in a space of 10 days to the virus.

On Wednesday SA reached 100,020 Covid-19 deaths.  

Nozizwe Maditla, 45, who lives in Mamelodi, lost her father on January 5 2021 and 10 days later her mother followed.

Maditla’s mother, Catherine, was a nurse at Tembisa Hospital and was 61 at the time she died of Covid-19 while her father, Peter, 64, worked at the department of basic education offices in Pretoria. Maditla said her parents lived with her siblings, twins aged 32, in Mamelodi.

“My father went to hospital on December 19 2020 because of flu. He tested and his results came back positive. My mother went to test as well and she also tested positive. Her condition was not severe and she took her medication,” she said.

Maditla said her mother’s illness got worse as she started having shortness of breath.

“She was rushed to hospital on Christmas Eve and put on an oxygen machine and then she was taken to the intensive care unit [ICU]. She was in ICU for 20 days.”

Maditla said her mother’s condition deteriorated and she took her last breath at Life Wilgers Hospital in Pretoria.

“She came out of ICU and went to a normal ward but she then developed organ complications,” she said.

Maditla described her mother as a Good Samaritan who provided food, clothing and shelter for her relatives.

“She was a helpful person and loved her children. She was our pillar of strength and took care of orphans. She made sure that her cousins’ children had their school fees paid for, food to eat and bought them clothes for Christmas.”

Maditla said her mother even paid tuition fees for her niece who is studying at a private makeup school in Randburg.

She said she had to take anxiety medication and her daughter, 20, had to seek counselling to cope with the deaths.

“That was a difficult time for us as a family. People were scared to come to our home because they were afraid of getting infected. There was a lot of stigma. It was tough but we coped,”  Maditla said.

“It is not easy losing both your parents 10 days apart. My child went to five counselling sessions and I was taking medication to cope. There are days when we miss our parents. I used to go everywhere with my mother and sometimes when I go to a place alone people ask me where my mother is and remember that she is gone and I have to accept that,” she said.