Theatre Of Nightmares

The devastated parents of a boy who died at the hands of a top surgeon tell DRUM why they’re pursuing criminal charges

- Lesego Maja

THE little girl frowns and points a finger at the furry toy across the patio. “Don’t smile,” seven-year-old Mateena Sayed tells the purple creature sternly. “My brother died.” Her parents, Mohammadh (36) and Zaheera Sayed (30), look on, lost for words.

Just over a fortnight ago their 10-year old son, Zayyaan, went into the hospital for what they were told was simple procedure – but what played out at the Netcare Park Lane Hospital in Johannesburg was the stuff of nightmares.

When Zayyaan was brought out of the theatre to the recovery room after pediatric surgeon Professor Peter Beale performed the operation, he was thrashing around on his bed and struggling to breathe. And then his heart stopped beating. That is the last memory they have of their son because just a short while later Zayyaan was dead.

A few weeks down the line the couple is still reeling. How could this have happened to their child after what was meant to be a routine operation to nip a recurring reflux issue in the bud?

Desperate for answers they did some digging – and what they discovered shocked them to the core. Because Zayyaan wasn’t the first child to die after going under Prof Beale’s knife.

Just weeks before his death, 12-year old Monique Moorcroft died in the same hospital after the surgeon operated on her. The Sayeds were also unaware that there’d been so many complaints about Beale (73), who is professor emeritus of pediatric surgery at Wits University, that he’d been suspended from practicing at all Mediclinic facilities since 2016 and was under peer review by Netcare.

But their son’s death won’t have been in vain. “We formed a group called Stop Beale. There are about seven parents we know of that have lost their children in the hands of Beale,” Mohammadh tells us in his Houghton home.