Pretoria

Netcare Media Statement The women who want to eat clay Uterine fibroids “a major women’s health issue in SA” Tuesday, 20 October 2015 Prolonged and heavy menstrual bleeding, pelvic pain, back and leg pains, pain during sex, feelings of exhaustion and even a strange urge to eat clay; these are just some of the troubling, even debilitating, symptoms that affect many of the hundreds of thousands of South African women who suffer from uterine fibroids. Dr Gary Sudwarts, an interventional radiologist who performs uterine fibroid embolisation (UFE) procedures at Netcare Park Lane and Netcare Linksfield hospitals in Johannesburg, as well as at UCT Private Academic Hospital in Cape Town, describes uterine fibroids as a major women’s health issue in South Africa. “This is a medical condition that warrants much greater attention and awareness than it currently receives, particularly as more and more effective treatment options are becoming available. Many South African women are silently suffering devastating symptoms as a result of untreated uterine fibroids. In addition, every year many thousands of women in South Africa have a hysterectomy, a major surgical procedure to remove the entire uterus, due to severe uterine fibroids.” Uterine fibroids are muscular, non-cancerous tumours that develop in the walls of the uterus. They most commonly, although not exclusively, develop in women in their 30s and 40s. Internationally, 20% of women have fibroids although this number is likely to be much higher in South Africa. “I began to experience long, irregular periods with heavy bleeding that could last as long as 12 days,” relates Bernadette Chiponda, a 39-year-old woman from Johannesburg, who says she also inexplicably suddenly started putting on weight and suffering migraines a year ago. “I would do one single chore around the house and feel completely drained. Fibroids were draining the energy and joy from my life. I often suffered migraines and my work as …

“I thought the end had come,” says accident victim whose bakkie was crushed by truck Rescue 1 community outreach service saves lives Tuesday, 1 October 2015 “I thought the end had come,” recalls 19-year-old Diego Viljoen, survivor of a horrific road accident, which saw the bakkie he was travelling in struck by a container truck in Modderfontein, Johannesburg earlier this year. “My bakkie was crushed under the weight of the truck, leaving me trapped in a tiny area of the cabin which was miraculously left intact.” Diego says he was in a great deal of shock after the accident and phoned his uncle to ask him to say goodbye to his mother, father and other family members as he did not believe he would ever get out of the wreck alive. Soon after this, however, Diego heard a calm voice asking if he was okay and then advising him to try to stay calm while assuring him that a rescue team would extricate him from his vehicle as soon as possible. “It was like the voice of an angel,” he recalls. “It was a paramedic and he brought hope that I might actually get out alive of what seemed a desperate situation.” Nick Dollman, a paramedic and crew member of Rescue 1, a special rescue vehicle operated as a community service by medical emergency services provider Netcare 911, arrived to find paramedics on scene, but was the first rescue unit to arrive at the accident. He says that what he saw took his breath away. A container truck had smashed into the bakkie, turning it over in the process. Thereafter, it drove right over the smaller vehicle. “We were relieved to hear that the driver of the vehicle was conscious, secured the accident site and called the fire department to assist at the scene. Fortunately, a crew from Northview fire station, as well as a number of other emergency services, soon joined us,” notes Dollman. “Together we worked for an hour and three quarters to free Diego. A crane had to be brought in to lift the truck off the bakkie before the recue teams …