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The Heliemetry

The Hlabisa Hospital Heliemetry

I am in outpatients. Abruptly a roaring, vibrating sound fills the air and thunders over the building. “What was that?” I ask Mr Zulu, the nurse in charge of OPD. He does not know. I wander outside but can see nothing to explain it. Shrugging mentally I return to my consulting cubicle.

Half an hour later I am walking back to my flat for lunch. The road to the residences is lined by a high wall. The wall is new, built in the last couple of years. I have never really thought about what lies behind it. Today however rising high above the wall are the blades of a helicopter rotor. I walk around the corner and find an open gate. A strange and incongruous site greets me. The helicopter dominates the grassed area the wall contains. It is new, painted in the classic colours of the emergency medical rescue services across the world. And it sits in the middle of a grave yard.

The wall has clearly been built to hide the hospital cemetery, a facility which presumably seemed appropriate when the Lutheran mission out of which the hospital grew was first founded in the 1930s. A couple of years ago I imagine someone in the Department of Health felt that it was inappropriate welcome for patients and visitors arriving at their local (and only) health care facility.

I run to get my camera. But by my return the helicopter has left. All that remain are a few onlookers eating their lunch on the gravestones.

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