Five years after winning a medical negligence lawsuit against the Eastern Cape health department, a Gqeberha woman is homeless, destitute and waiting for a court date to determine the amount of money to be paid to her.
Felicia Meyers, 55, underwent what she understood to be routine laparoscopic cholecystectomy surgery at Livingstone Hospital in March 2010 to remove her gall bladder. But two perforations of her bile duct left her in agony and she was forced to have more surgery to fix it.
“After that first operation I thought I was going to die. My entire body was burning and I was bleeding from my nose and eyes,” Meyers said.
She took her complaint to the high court in Gqeberha, but lost. Her case was heard on appeal by a full court of the Eastern Cape and was dismissed. But the Supreme Court of Appeal granted her leave to appeal, and subsequently ruled in her favour.
It found the provincial health department was liable for the damages Meyer had suffered as a consequence of the injury inflicted during surgery by Dr Richard Vogel.
The court ordered the department to pay her costs of the hearing, including the fees of their expert witness.
But five years later she is still struggling to survive — out of pocket and homeless. Desperate, Meyers emailed the Sunday Times asking for assistance.
“I worked as a security officer at the stadium here in Gqeberha. But a patrol of the stadium takes two hours and after the two operations I just couldn’t do it any more.”
Meyers, who is divorced, has spent the last 15 years bouncing from family and friends to living on the streets.
This week, a teary Meyers said her dream was to live a normal life again after all the hurdles of the last five years.
“The lawyer who handled my case all the way to the appeals court, Lineen Swarts, did not communicate with me at all. I even walked to his office to ask for a case number so I could go to the court myself to ask for the date. But the clerks of the court said I had the wrong case number, that one was for someone with the surname Oliphant,” Meyers said on Thursday.
Swarts denies this claim.
For now, she is living with her daughter in Sydenham in Gqeberha.
“But this can’t go on forever. Everywhere I stayed in the last 15 years, I always knew there was a limit to how long I can live on the kindness of others.”
Eastern Cape health spokesperson Sizwe Kupelo told the Sunday Times that the matter is listed on their system as “dormant”.
“From our records, the matter was filed for R500,000 but it is now dormant with a zero balance,” Kupelo said.
He could not say whether the R500,000 had been paid out to their lawyers or was merely an estimate of costs.
The clerk of the Gqeberha high court, Denim Kroqwana, told the Sunday Times that the application for a quantum date — to assess the payout amount — was only filed on April 4 last year.
Approached for comment, Swarts confirmed the matter had not been finalised.
“We are waiting for a date in respect of quantum. We have approached the registrar [of the Eastern Cape High Court] to inquire as to the delay in allocating a trial date on quantum,” Swarts said.
He denied only applying for the first time in 2024 and supplied proof of an earlier application in August 2020.
Asked about the complaints by Meyers regarding poor communication and the wrong case number, he said: “The merits of the case have been completed as it is written in the judgment.”
He denied that Meyers had to come to his office, only to be given a wrong case number.
“She only comes crying to my office to ask for money. The last time was on April 14. She also asked me for money on February 25 and March 25 when she came to my office. If there was a mistake with the case number, typos happen. I have nothing to hide. Remember, all documents are signed by the state advocate, so if we made a typo they also did not pick it up.”
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