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An ear, nose, and throat specialist spent a night in the Edenvale police holding cells with four other people. He was accused of violating the Covid-19 curfew, although the doctor told police he was attending to a medical emergency in the West Rand, says a Times LIVE report. Dr. Ivan Jardine, who lives in Kensington, east of Johannesburg, had spent the late Friday afternoon and evening in Quellerina, west of Johannesburg, attending to his aunt – who he described as the oldest surviving member of the family. She is in her early 80s and needed medical attention. Jardine said after he received a call from a cousin on Friday afternoon that his aunt needed medical treatment and there was no help nearby, he drove to Quellerina to attend to her.
Jardine said he left Quellerina after 9 pm, notes TimesLIVE. ‘At Eastgate, the police stopped me and demanded a permit and demanded an ID. I said I was a doctor. They did not believe me,’ Jardine said. He was arrested and placed in a police cell with others. Jardine finally got his cellphone back at 2 am and a family member came with the bail money, and he was released on Saturday at 5 am. Jardine's lawyer appeared in court on his behalf yesterday and the case was postponed to 5 August. ‘No doctor needs a permit for an emergency. If the same emergency arises, I would do the same. No government, no policeman must stop us from performing our duties when an emergency calls,’ Jardine said. He added there was a total lack of compassion from the two police officials who arrested him. ‘Social media has exposed this. People are outraged. We need to expose this now. There could be other colleagues affected,’ Jardine said, adding he was expecting the case to be dropped.