Your notes were inadequate’: Lawyer grills doctor at Cat Matlala’s trial

The lawyer for Vusimusi “Cat” Matlala’s co-accused, Musa Kekana, has accused a doctor of failing to adequately document his alleged suffocation and assault when she examined him.

Dr Pooja Panicker, who treated Kekana on April 17 2024, was subjected to a lengthy cross-examination in which his lawyer, Riaan Gissing, repeatedly questioned gaps in her notes.

Alleged underworld kingpin and murder accused Matlala and his four co-accused are facing 25 charges, which include 11 counts of attempted murder and money laundering tied to multiple alleged assassination plots.

Kekana’s April 2024 arrest that is linked to the murder of Vereeniging engineer Armand Swart is now the subject of a trial-within-a-trial to determine whether firearms recovered during that operation may be admitted as evidence in the main trial with Matlala and others.

The allegations are that those firearms were later linked to the attempted murders of taxi boss Joe Sibanyoni and actor Tebogo Thobejane.

Kekana claims he was tortured after his arrest for Swart’s murder.

Panicker’s notes recorded a two-week history of coughing, production of yellow sputum, and chest pain when coughing, and Kekana had allegedly been suffocated five times at a police station and subsequently started coughing up blood.

However, Gissing questioned why Panicker had not recorded more details about the alleged incident.

“Have you not asked for details about the alleged suffocation? The history was taken down in a rather summary, in my respectful view, an inadequate manner,” he said.

Panicker disagreed.

“I don’t think the history was inadequate per se,” she said.

“I did get the information I needed at the time in the emergency department to manage the patient, as my main goal in the emergency department is to stabilise the patient.”

Panicker said that emergency doctors were not primarily responsible for investigating an alleged assault.

Gissing, however, pointed to what he regarded as significant omissions, including that Panicker had not recorded what was allegedly used to suffocate Kekana or at which police station the incident supposedly occurred.

“You’ve not even gone through the trouble in determining what the suffocation was allegedly done with,” Gissing said.

When Gissing suggested that Kekana had never told her that he had a two-week history of coughing, Panicker stood by her notes.

“No, the history comes from the patient. It’s questions that I ask the patient and the patient answers,” she said.

Gissing said Kekana never told her that he had been suffocated at a police station.

“Where do you suggest I got this information from?” she asked.

“I do not have any interest in the case, or I did not know there was a case,” she said.

“All I knew was that I had a patient in front of me who complained of coughing blood, and I was investigating that. So whatever I wrote here is the subjective information I had received from the patient.”

The defence also pointed out that Panicker could not remember several details about the consultation, including Kekana’s clothing or whether there were bloodstains on his clothing.

However, Panicker said her role had been to treat Kekana.

“My role was to assess and manage his medical condition. Not to assess whether the patient had been illegally assaulted or not,” she said.

The defence also challenged discrepancies between Panicker’s notes and those of another doctor.

Panicker had recorded a two-week history of a productive cough, while another doctor recorded one day of an unproductive cough.

Gissing said Panicker had probably made mistakes when recording Kekana’s history, to which she rejected the notion.

“I think if you’re going to compare my history notes with one specific doctor, it should be compared with every doctor that saw the patient,” she said.

“The history keeps changing. So I don’t think you can say that my history was inaccurate when other doctors had documented the same.”

Sowetan