Former world-champion boxer Corrie Sanders died on Sunday after he was shot by three armed black men, but also refused medical treatment by two hospitals.
According to his relatives, his life could have been saved if he had received medical treatment sooner. Corrie Sanders was shot in the arm and stomach upon shielding his daughter with his body during the shooting in a restaurant in Brits, northwest of Johannesburg. He was attending the twenty-first birthday celebration of his nephew.
Corrie Sanders was refused admission to a private hospital in the vicinity of the attack because he did not have medical aid (health insurance). He was then taken to the former HF Verwoerd academic hospital, a state institution. According to his wife, Sunette Sanders the state hospital again refused to treat him as he had been shot “outside the municipal area of Pretoria”.
South Africa’s state medical system has been politicised, subject to government race preference policies and racial quotas for medical students. The former HF Verwoerd hospital has been renamed Steve Biko, in honour of the Black Consciousness leader and the hospital is now under black managerial control, as opposed to previously when it was managed by whites.
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Corrie Sanders was finally admitted to Kalafong hospital in a black area where he died yesterday morning, apparently for lack of urgent medical treatment.
His friend and fellow boxer, Kallie Knoetze, said it was “inhuman that people needing urgent medical treatment should be turned away from private hospitals without good reason”.
Corrie Sanders’s familie said that the tragedy of his death was “a perfect example of why the government had to relook at the South African healthcare system”.
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