The incident was reported to have taken place on May 14 after the boy was admitted with a leg that he fractured while playing soccer with friends.

His mother, who cannot be named to protect the child’s identity, told Rekord that the boy was placed in a ward with three older men.

At night, while the others were asleep, one of the patients pulled a knife on her son.

“He held it at his throat and threatened to stab him if he screamed,” she said.

“He then undressed and got onto my son’s bed and raped him.”

“My son says the lights were off and it was dark.”

She said when morning came, the shaken boy – who had been waiting to undergo surgery – struggled to talk to speak to nurses about the ordeal.

He asked to use one of the nurses’ phones to phone his family, but he was told his family would be coming to the 11:00 visit.

“When he could not call any of us, he had to wait until my sister went to see him during visiting hours at 17:00. That’s when he told her what happened to him.

“She took her to the side and showed her what happened to him.”

She said despite the matter being reported to the hospital, her son was still waiting to undergo surgery for his fractured leg.

He, however, then suffered more trauma at the hands of some hospital staff who made comments about the rape being untrue.

“He told me that some of the nurses were making comments about this being a ploy for us to make money out of the hospital and that nothing had happened to him.

“My son heard all of that while he was dealing with the trauma of being raped.”

“To make matters worse, he said when he was taken to surgery, he was taken along with the perpetrator.”

She said her son was discharged from the hospital without receiving any counselling and counselling was only offered much later.

“Because my son cannot sit on his buttocks for too long while we waited, I took him to the benches where he could lay down.

“Even then we became a topic of discussion for the nurses there. Some of them would whisper around us with others even pointing at us. It was uncomfortable. I took my son and I left.”

The distraught mother said when she reported the matter to the hospital management, she was told that the hospital was not liable.

She was told that if she wanted to, she could go ahead and take legal action.

“How the matter was handled was so insensitive.”

The mother said the boy was traumatized and struggled to sleep at night.

“We don’t sleep at night. He gets nightmares during which he screams out for help,” she said.

“I wake up with him, I try to comfort him. He needs counselling.

“My younger sister wakes up every morning and sits in the car and cries. We feel like we have failed him.”

Mamelodi East police confirmed that a 34-year-old man was arrested on a charge of rape.

Gauteng health department spokesperson Kwara Kekana said upon learning of the incident, the police were notified and the alleged perpetrator was kept under police custody.

“The alleged victim was taken to the crisis center for examinations where the appropriate procedures were followed. The police were notified and the alleged victim was transferred to a different ward,” she said

“According to the health act and the national guidelines, the cut-off age for a pediatric patient is 12; thus, the boy was kept in an adult ward.”

She said the results of a rape examination case were only shared with the forensic team from the police as part of the investigation.

When asked whether staff at the hospital had been trained to deal with rape matters, Kekana said: “Our crisis center is a specialized center; it is equipped with a multi-disciplinary team trained to deal with rape cases.”

Thank you REKORD for the article

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