Former Kaizer Chiefs striker Kanga Nzenza has opened up about his health struggles following a botched eye operation by a Tembisa hospital doctor.
Nzenza, who is originally from the Democratic Republic of Congo, served South African football playing for the Phefeni Glamour Boys in the mid-90s.
"I'm struggling with my eyes, you know. I can't see properly. It's difficult, I'm telling you. I have a difficult time. I need help," pleads Nzenza, in an interview with KickOff.
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"I had an eye problem in 2017, it started with a cataract. I then went to Tembisa Hospital, they operated on my eye, and the doctor made a mistake. I don't know what he did, but after the operation, I never saw again.
"Then he was telling me: No, don't worry. Come every month for... So, every month I've been going there for consultation. It's almost two years now. It's painful.
"By that time, I'm bleeding inside, and the doctor is just giving me some eye drops, and that eye that's bleeding inside is now damaging my other eye, I cannot even see. Only in 2019 did he say he couldn't help me.
"So, right now I need help from the other people," says Nzenza, opening up on his heart-rending ordeal.
The former marksman, who used to have a formidable partnership with the late Fortune Koloba at Amakhosi, says he thinks the doctor may have cut one of the veins during the cataract surgery.
"I don't know if he was a student doctor, but he did it badly," he laments.
"After two years, he told me: 'Eish, my friend, I can't help you. You will never see with this eye again'. That was my left eye. Ah! [sighing]. I was shocked to hear a doctor tell me such.
"I'm trying to seek help from people. They've been advising me to take him to court. Even the other nurses have been telling me that this man made a mess to many people. But how can a doctor who's been making a mess to people's lives be still having a job there? I've been suffering since 2017, the year I did the operation," he adds.
Nzenza is honest enough to admits he needs all the help he can get from the general public in order to ease his plight.
"I will be relieved if I were to receive help. He broke me, that doctor. I cannot further my coaching career. I was coaching left and right already when he messed up my life.
"I'm having a terrible time. I can't see anything, I don't have eyes to see. Both my eyes can't see now. I'm feeling relieved when I'm talking to you.
"I need donations if people can be able to help me so that I can at least save the other eye because, at the moment, it can only see the shadows when people are passing. I can't even watch Kaizer Chiefs playing. I can't even walk by myself.
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"This doctor shut down my career, he shut down my life. If this can at least reach Kaizer Motaung Jr. I believe his foundation can help at least the right side eye. But I don't know how to reach him or Kaizer Chiefs, you know.
"If someone can help me so that I can be able to read my Bible again because I'm a preacher of the Word.
"If I knew, I would never have gone there to that hospital."