The Nkomo family of Filabusi District has accused medical staff at Filabusi District Hospital of negligence after four more children died from eating poisoned mushrooms last week. All in all 8 family members ate the poisoned mushrooms, and four family members died last week, with three being buried yesterday while one is expected to be buried today (Tuesday). The family alleges that the hospital staff released the four children who died recently without treating them after the children lied that they had not eaten the mushrooms because they were afraid of hypodermic syringe injections.
The family’s spokesperson Ms Nonhlanhla Nkomo told The Chronicle,
They ate the mushrooms on Saturday night and our neighbours helped ferry them to hospital the following day. Upon arrival nurses asked the children to indicate if they had eaten the mushrooms as their grandmother could not speak before discharging five of them,” she added.
The children including one aged one year nine months upon seeing that my mother was injected said they didn’t eat mushrooms and were given glucose. The following day, their condition deteriorated and they were sent again to hospital on Monday night, two of them are being buried today.
We are pained and we never thought we would meet to bury three bodies at once as a family. The fourth child will be buried tomorrow in Bulawayo and we are not happy as per her father’s request.
The Image shows the “destroying angel” a deadly all-white mushroom which can sometimes be mistaken for the harmless button mushrooms.
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