The doctor who was gunned down in his surgery in Soweto survived a shooting in 1995 and still had a bullet lodged in his stomach.

This is according to Dr Michael Isabelle’s wife Lindelwa, who spoke at his funeral service at the Nasrec Memorial Park in Johannesburg on Tuesday.

“I don’t remember a life without Micheal,” a heartbroken Isabelle told mourners. 

“He was very strict about security. We would forget to lock the kitchen door and Mike would freak out. The doors were [always] locked in the house.” 

She recalled her husband’s 1995 shooting when he had started practicing as a doctor in Katlehong, on the East Rand. 

Lindelwa relayed how her husband fought for his life that year. “When he was shot he was with a patient in the consultation room. The bullet went through his wrist and into his stomach. and that bullet was never removed. While in hospital, he experienced complications, his stomach started swelling but he survived,” she said.  

“The three [bullets] that hit him this time around [on February 26] went out [of his body]. The one that hit him in 1995 is still in his body.” 

The “good doctor”, as many described him, was shot three times when armed robbers entered his Dobsonville practice demanding phones.

“ Thirty-three years is a very long time. We had good times and times that were not great. But we stuck it out. Our forever was going to be forever,” Lindelwa said as she gently brushed her husband’s coffin. 

In a moving tribute, Lindelwa described her husband as a kind man who was committed to working beyond his medical practice. “He was very generous and kind and yet he was very fugal. Mike never believed in spending money willy-nilly,” she said. 

“He sponsored a soccer team in Soweto. Adopted creches to which he also donated to. Every Christmas, he would take gifts to these children. There are some things he did that I did not know about until now. That he paid tuition for some children, I did not know that. 

“Two weeks ago, he asked me to play this song [by James Ingram – How do you keep the music playing]. Little did I know that two weeks later I would actually have to play the song." 

Isabelle’s siblings shared how he had stepped in as a parent when their mother died while they were young. 

His youngest brother Sipho Phenyane recalled: “Our mother died when I was a few months old and even though we had to be separated as siblings, my brother played the role of a deputy parent,” he said. 

“He died a very painful death for the person he was. He was giving, a natural teacher and wanted to see all of us doing well. For him to be killed like this hurts.” 

Members of the Dobsonville community, where Isabelle had worked for over 20 years, attended the funeral and paid tribute in song. 

In 1997, Isabelle set up his private practice in Dobsonville at the Dobsonpoint shopping centre, where he would work for many years. In 2021, his practice was looted during the July unrest, forcing him to take a temporary break. 

A year later, he reestablished his practice along Steve Kgane Street in the same neighbourhood where the shooting incident took place. 

He had four children.

sibiyan@sowetan.co.za