Chicken bone turns Sunday lunch into nine-day hospital stay

Health-e News Chicken bone turns Sunday lunch into nine-day hospital stay Dorothy Khomo from Duduza township, near Springs on Gauteng’s East Rand, had just returned from church and was eating with her family when she felt a chicken bone lodge in her throat.

Her sister suggested eating brown bread to push it down.

When that did not work, Khomo went to bed, hoping the discomfort would pass.

Instead, her condition worsened.

“I couldn’t sleep properly.

I had a fever and my throat was uncomfortable,” she says.

By Monday morning, Khomo could barely speak and her neck had started swelling.

She went to Nokuthela Ngwenya Clinic in Dunnottar, where she was referred to Pholosong Regional Hospital.

Sent home to wait for medical specialist Khomo says when she arrived at Pholosong Regional Hospital, she was told she needed to be examined by the hospital’s ear, nose and throat (ENT) department.

But hospital staff told her that ENT doctors would only be available the following day.

Khomo says she was sent home despite the pain, fever and swelling.

When she returned to the hospital the following day, a scan confirmed the chicken bone was still lodged in her throat.

Doctors performed an emergency operation to remove it.

While most accidentally swallowed foreign bodies pass through the digestive tract without intervention, sharp bones can become lodged and cause serious complications, including perforation of the oesophagus, infection and abscess formation.