What A Trip That Was!

A KwaZulu-Natal taxi driver tells DRUM what happened the day he helped a passenger give birth in his minibus

- Zama Nteyi

It had been a typical day. He was taking his final load of passengers to their destination before knocking off when a heavily pregnant woman got into his taxi. Soon after, she started experiencing labour pains. And that’s when KwaZulu-Natal taxi driver Nhlonipho Zulu’s whole day changed.

“I drive taxis from Richards Bay to Nongoma but on that day I’d taken people who were going to Hlabisa as well,” Nhlonipho recalls. “We do this when the taxi isn’t full and it’s the last load. When I got to Hlabisa I lifted one more person who was going to Nongoma.”

The passenger was pregnant Ntombenhle Mthethwa (22).

“I didn’t even notice she was pregnant. As soon as we took off she told me she wasn’t feeling well. She said she was getting labour pains.

“She asked me to take her to a nearby clinic. Someone suggested I go to Buxedene Clinic. I drove there and waited for a nurse to assist us.”

Nhlonipho (31) says the nurse started fighting with them.

“She wanted to know why she chose to get labour pains near their clinic and why we didn’t go to the hospital at KwaHlabisa.

“Ntombenhle explained that when she got into the taxi she didn’t feel any labour pains and thought she’d be able to get to her destination, at Nongoma. But the nurse was having none of it.

“The nurse told us they won’t be able to help Ntombenhle because they don’t have doctors.

“She looked at her file and said it was too early to give birth, and that if she did it would be too risky as she was eight months pregnant.

“Ntombenhle then told them her waters had already broken, but the nurses wouldn’t listen,” Nhlonipho recalls. “She was then taken into another room. I thought they were helping her.