9 January 2009
A Cape Town woman was at her wits' end after being refused medicine at a state hospital because she was legally "dead".
Alma Arendse, 56, has battled to convince staff at Retreat day hospital for three months that she is alive, in order to receive prescription pills for high blood pressure.
"It started in October," she told the Cape Argus on Friday.
The problem was only resolved this week after the intervention of the Independent Democrats.
"I went to receive my pills and after waiting the whole day, they said I should come back the next day."
But when she returned, she was told she had in fact died in August.
Arendse still had a supply of pills but when she ran out earlier this week the bizarre bureaucratic nightmare continued.
"They told me they could not give me pills and could not even open a new folder for me, until I went to the police to get an affidavit to say that I was alive," she reported.
She asked for help from her neighbour, ID local councillor Aubrey Robinson.
ID Western Cape provincial secretary Rodney Lentit said Arendse was eventually able to collect her medication on Tuesday.
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