The family of
four, 52-year-old Mrs Sinothando Gwayi, her daughter Sanelisiwe Ndlovu (14) and
two grand-children — Primrose Ndlovu (13) and three-year-old Precious Ndlovu —
was rushed to Mbembeswana Clinic after eating the poisonous delicacy.
The family
members were then transferred to Mpilo Central Hospital a day later.
Unfortunately,
Mrs Ndlovu passed away yesterday morning, two days after her granddaughter
Primrose succumbed to illness caused by the poisonous mushrooms that they ate.
Sanelisiwe and
little Precious are battling for their lives at the country’s second-largest
referral hospital. A distraught Miss Prudence Ndlovu, daughter of the late
granny and mother of the deceased teenager, who is based in South Africa, said
she rushed back to Bubi as soon as she heard news that her family members were
taken ill after eating the deadly mushrooms.
She is baffled
at how her mother mistook poisonous mushrooms for edible ones, given that the
elderly woman had been harvesting mushrooms for the family for years.
“Ever since I
was a young girl, my mother has always been the one who forages for the
mushrooms in our area when it rains. I have no idea how this time around she
harvested the wrong mushrooms.
“I have lost a
mother and a daughter and I am at a loss of words,” said Prudence at Mpilo
Hospital yesterday.
“My sister (Mrs
Patience Ngwenya) is with her little girl at the children’s ward. Our prayer is
for the little girl and my surviving young sister Sanelisiwe to recover. We
can’t lose more family members,” she said in between sobs. Chronicle
