Christine Nxumalo and her late sister Virginia Machpelah and late niece Shanice

SHE LOOKED SO WELL THAT DAY

This photograph of the late Virginia Machpelah with her daughter Shanice was taken in June 2016. ‘She looked so well that day,’ Christine remembers. ‘And Shanice was so happy to see her mother. I didn’t know it would be the last time I would see my sister alive.’

Virginia suffered from early onset Altzheimer’s disease and had lived at Life Esidimeni facility in Randfontein for two years.

Two weeks after Christine had seen her sister, she received an SMS telling her that Virginia had been moved to the Cullinan Care and Rehabilitation Centre. Christine tried the number on the SMS but no one answered. Finally Daphney Ndlovu called back and told Christine that Virginia was not there, but she should try two other NGOs.

Christine spent weeks trying to find her sister. On 25 August, she received a call from Ethel Ncube, Director of Precious Angels in Atteridgeville, Pretoria. Ethel told Christine that Virginia had been with her for two weeks but had just died. Christine later learnt that Ethel had lied. Virginia had actually died 10 days before this call.

What followed was a further ordeal. For two weeks Christine and her husband travelled to Atteridgeville every day in an attempt to find Virginia to identify her body. Eventually they were told that Virginia’s body had been moved to a storage facility in Hebron. A further struggle then ensued to get the body released.

On the first day of the arbitration proceedings, the family was to suffer a further tragic loss. Shanice, Virginia’s daughter, collapsed and died suddenly. It is believed she died of Broken Heart Syndrome. Shanice had just turned 21 years old.