Roebel Botha in 2022 with his dog, Queenie. (Photo: Facebook)
A total of 27 years after a policeman was declared medically unfit, became paralyzed on his left side and had to numb persistent pain with over-the-counter pain pills, the Compensation Fund is going to compensate him with R67 950.
However, this payment comes 30 months after Roebel Botha (59) died due to organ failure and septic shock due to a perforated colon. His wife, Charmaine, says a doctor at the time said it was caused by years of pain medication they bought over the counter. Roebel used it to “at least just control” the continuous pain he had to endure. Their medical aid was usually exhausted by June.
Ruebel died on December 30, 2023. On his deathbed he worried that he was leaving his wife with mountains of medical debt and in his last hours he worried that his wife would suffer after his death.
In the years before Roebel’s death, Charmaine helped not only him, but also several other policemen to try to get the payments owed to them. She tells Roebel’s sake that she is actually glad he is no longer here to experience this “paltry compensation”.
“He has always believed they would do the right thing.”
As a young police member, Roebel dived over a sandbag during training in the 90s and injured his neck. In 1997 he underwent heart surgery. Two weeks later, he was barely back at work when, during a police investigation, he was in a car accident in which his neck was injured in a whiplash movement. He suffered nerve and spinal cord damage.
Charmaine and Roebel Botha. (Photo: Provided)
Months later, his foot began to warp and he lost the use of his hand. After an operation he had a spinal stroke.
“His left leg, foot and arm were affected. Later he developed incontinence and problems with his stomach, bladder and colon followed.”
Full medical reports in support of his medical conditions have been repeatedly provided to the fund over the years. Tribunals and appeals followed in vain and the couple struggled financially for years.
In the years before Roebel’s death, Charmaine continuously inquired about a payout. She was sent from port to starboard and the couple drove from one department to the next in the hope that Roebel would finally receive the compensation.
For Charmaine, the way Roebel was treated after his injury is extremely bad.
“He lost his income; his house in Newcastle because he could no longer pay the installments…”
Roebel Botha. (Photo: Facebook)
In 2016, the Supreme Court found that Roebel is 61% medically disabled and must be compensated accordingly. The Compensation Fund appealed. In the document that Charmaine recently received regarding the compensation, Roebel’s injury is indicated as “loss of movement in the left elbow”.
Charmaine is unsure on the basis of which this conclusion was drawn, while her husband has been in a wheelchair for the last few years and the injuries irrevocably changed the course of his life.
For now she resigns.
“I’m going to have them pay out that meager amount.”
Despite the many challenges that Roebel had to overcome, he mostly remained positive. Twenty months before his death, he wrote in a message: “Faith is all that’s left. I only hope that the people who work with our stuff one day see the picture. They don’t realize what they’re doing to us. I forgive them for that. Our life is difficult, but we can’t complain. We’re still alive.”