Special Hearings — Mandela United Football Club Hearings — 1997-11-24

ALBERTINA SISULU: No, not unless I come straight from the passage to the door.

MR KADES: So if you were sitting at your desk?

ALBERTINA SISULU: If I am sitting at my desk, I don't see the sitting room, nor the Doctor's room.

MR KADES: So how would patients, patients would need to be processed by you?

ALBERTINA SISULU: Yes.

MR KADES: First, before they saw the Doctor?

ALBERTINA SISULU: Before they go to the Doctor?

MR KADES: Yes, so how would they know or how would you know that there were patients who had arrived that needed to be processed?

ALBERTINA SISULU: From the backdoor, I've got a queue of the patients that are coming to be admitted in the backroom, which was my dispensary.  Finishing that, they go back to the sitting room, to the reception room.

MR KADES: I see.  So you would know exactly, you would have control or you would see precisely who entered the surgery?

ALBERTINA SISULU: I wouldn't see if I am at the back who entered the front door to the surgery.

MR KADES: Did you ever have an assistant?

ALBERTINA SISULU: No, I was alone in the surgery.

MR KADES: Always?

ALBERTINA SISULU: Always, and when you were not there, did somebody else ... (intervention)

ALBERTINA SISULU: Nobody, Doctor used to do his cases alone in the afternoons when I am off.

MR KADES: So, then if we look at the card, K569, the card of Katiza Cebekhulu, you have told us Madam, that the entry of the name and address, the first two lines on the card are not in your handwriting?

ALBERTINA SISULU: Yes.

MR KADES: Not even the card number, K569?

ALBERTINA SISULU: No.  I don't print when I write.

MR KADES: I am sorry?

ALBERTINA SISULU: I don't print when I write.

MR KADES: You don't print?  Have you any idea who could have filled in this card, those first two lines?  It is not you, we know now, it was not the Doctor himself?

ALBERTINA SISULU: I wouldn't know, I wouldn't know that.

MR KADES: Well, can you then perhaps explain to us why as was put to you by Mr Vally, that in the interview on television with Fred Bridgeland, you did say that those two lines were in your handwriting?

ALBERTINA SISULU: Not unless perhaps he brought the card that had my own handwriting, because this is not my handwriting.

MR KADES: I see.  And Madam, who had the - you see there is a date stamp on the left hand side in the first column, date, you see that date stamp?

ALBERTINA SISULU: Yes.

MR KADES: 1988-12-30, who kept that stamp?

ALBERTINA SISULU: Well, we had that stamp, both of us with Doctor, because Doctor admits his cases when I am not there.

MR KADES: So are you saying that he had, the Doctor had an identical stamp to the one that you had?

ALBERTINA SISULU: Same date, of course the stamps would be the same.

MR KADES: I am sorry?

ALBERTINA SISULU: The stamps would be the same if it is the same date.

MR KADES: Were there two stamps?

ALBERTINA SISULU: Yes.

MR KADES: Two date stamps, one kept by you with a pad presumably and the other kept by the Doctor in his surgery?

ALBERTINA SISULU: Yes, we had stamps both of them, because when he admits the cases in my absence, he take all the particulars and stamp the card.

MR KADES: May I tell you the problem I have with that answer, and that is that if we  look at the card of Jerry Richardson, you have it?

ALBERTINA SISULU: Yes.

MR KADES: You see the card of Jerry Richardson is in the handwriting of the Doctor?

ALBERTINA SISULU: Yes.

MR KADES: And with regard to the date, the 26th of the 1st of 1989?

ALBERTINA SISULU: Yes.

MR KADES: That is in script, it is in the Doctor's handwriting and it is not a stamp that was used to enter that day.

ALBERTINA SISULU: Was it the same date?

MR KADES: The date thereunder is the 27th, and that has a stamp and presumably the stamp that day, was stamped by you.  But the Doctor has not used the stamp?

ALBERTINA SISULU: I can't remember this.

MR KADES: The day of the murder of the late Dr Asvat, must be a very painful day to you, and a day that you obviously recall very clearly?
 Mrs Sisulu, do you recall the people who came to the surgery that day?  Do you recall Jerry Richardson coming to the surgery, after all you weighed him and you took his, is that his height, his urine sample?

ALBERTINA SISULU: The writing on this card, as I say, I don't print, is mine.  The weight is mine and the urine is mine.

MR KADES: Yes, now what would you have done with - the weight you entered on the card, the urine, did you have any separate card on which you would fill in that information or did you test it yourself?

ALBERTINA SISULU: I did.

MR KADES: There is evidence that when Katiza Cebekhulu was examined by Dr Asvat, on the 30th of December 1988, that certain blood samples were taken from him.  I am not asking you to remember, what I am asking you is what would have happened to those blood samples?  Would you have dealt with it?

ALBERTINA SISULU: Blood samples?  Examination and the blood samples and whatever the drugs were given by the Doctor, I never came near those.

MR KADES: Well, would the Doctor take the blood sample or was that ...

ALBERTINA SISULU: He takes it away with him.  It is not suppose, because we didn't even have a fridge.  Whenever he takes the samples, he takes them away to  that organisation.

MR KADES: And do you know to whom he would take them for examination?

ALBERTINA SISULU: I don't know.

MR KADES: You don't know the pathologist?

ALBERTINA SISULU: No.

MR KADES: And when reports concerning blood samples and whatever other samples were sent to pathologists, were received, in the office, would they be delivered?

ALBERTINA SISULU: Delivered to the Doctor.

ALBERTINA SISULU: Or sometimes he checks the results.

MR KADES: I see.  Would you have anything to do with that?

ALBERTINA SISULU: No, I wouldn't have anything to do with that.

MR KADES: Now, when it came to collecting money, payment from patients, who did that?

ALBERTINA SISULU: The Doctor, because I don't know how much he is going to charge.

MR KADES: I see.   So you don't know whether this patient Jerry Richardson who saw him both on the 26th and the 27th of January 1989, you don't know whether that patient paid or didn't pay?

ALBERTINA SISULU: I don't know really.

MR KADES: The patients who were sent to your surgery by Mrs Madikizela-Mandela were they charged for services or don't you know?

ALBERTINA SISULU: I have no idea.

MR KADES: You see the card of Katiza Cebekhulu has n/c written on it, which I assume means no charge?  Dr Asvat's brother has told us that.

ALBERTINA SISULU: I don't know what this means.

MR KADES: Have you never seen that on any other card?

ALBERTINA SISULU: It may be I have seen it, but I don't know what it means really because even the drugs are not given by me, they are given by the Doctor.

MR KADES: But you would ordinarily enter the name of the patient, you would complete the first two lines of the card, is that correct?

ALBERTINA SISULU: That is right.

MR KADES: And then you would enter the card number?

ALBERTINA SISULU: Stamp it.

MR KADES: Give the card a number by entering into a register?

ALBERTINA SISULU: Stamp the card.

MR KADES: You would stamp the card, the date?

ALBERTINA SISULU: Yes.

MR KADES: And pass it on to the Doctor.

MR KADES: And the manner of your passing it on to the Doctor, would be through an aperture, a whole in the wall between your office and the office of the Doctor, is that correct?

ALBERTINA SISULU: Before you open the Doctor's room, there was a little hole where I would just come down the steps and put there the cards on that little hole.

MR KADES: Was that not a hole between the offices of yourself and the Doctor?

ALBERTINA SISULU: Yes.

MR KADES: It was?

ALBERTINA SISULU: Yes.

MR KADES: So if anything was happening in the Doctor's surgery, in the consulting room itself, you would be in a position to hear?