Skip to main content

The Borrower

We have a new bunch of elective students. From the States. They all look terribly young. They are following close at my heel as I wander onto the ward. They try to follow me into the toilet but halt when I tell them to “stay”.

We start the ward round. Sister is on excellent form. She sizes up the students.

“So – where are you from?” she demands, pulling up her sleeves exposing her formidable forearms as if she was about to punch the answers out of them. They shuffle back involuntarily and admit to being American.

“Ahh – America. I wish to go to America,” she says dreamily. She studies the students. Her gaze settles on one – a girl of about 4 foot tall who is presumably some kind of child genius. Or a long forgotten trans-Atlantic cousin of the Borrowers. Her eyes widen.

“Hauw Dr!” she says to me. She grabs the girl. “Look at this one – you must check her hormones. She has not had puberty. Her endocrine system is defective!” The poor girl colours and tries to look even smaller were it possible.

Comments

Anonymous said…
So I'm not the only one that Sister pounced on! :) Your "Breast Donation" blog was quite accurate, except she also accused me of looking 12 years old ("Look at this one! She is 24, but you cannot believe it; she is so small!"), and, after parading me around the wards and introducing me this way to others, she also grabbed at my chest, not just her own! :)
This is Bethany, btw. We are back in Durban by now and it is our last week in Africa. Your blog is fascinating, and it makes me realize I miss you guys already! (I'm pleased to have been mentioned in your popular blog lol.) Please also say hi to Mmabatho and Casper for me. Best wishes!
~Bethany Eastman
FireEyes.16@juno.com
27 November 2007 at 09:56
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Abscess

The phone rings. I am lying on the sofa in the dark squinting at the laptop screen: someone has lent me series 1 of Spooks. I struggle up and bump across the room to the phone. “Hello?” “Moran!?” “Yebo.” “How are you?” “I am fine.” “I am fine too.” And then those four dreaded words. “Please hold for maternity.” The line goes dead for a second and then a midwife comes on the line. “Moran?” “Yes.” “How are you?” “I am fine. “I am fine too. I have a 22 year old primip. She is in labour but I cannot do a PV. She has a Bartholin’s abscess.” I ask a few intelligent questions and then, pausing only check what exactly a Bartholin’s abscess is (an abscess of the Bartholin’s gland apparently) I head for maternity. On arriving I am taken to the woman concerned and, yes, sure enough there is a large abscess in the position that I imagine a Bartholin’s gland might sit if I knew exactly what it was. “I cannot do a PV to check the cervix because it is too painful.” The abscess blocks the way. “Right.
1 comment
Read more

10 years on

The door flies open. Lele peers in. "You must come out here and see. They are doing a play!" I finish up my case file annotation and come to the doorway. The waiting area is in chaos. A gang of school children are manhandling a couple of marimba's to the space in front of the consulting rooms, a team of nurses and counsellors are creating a stage area. Patients look on mutely. Some with interest, others - presumably feeling proportionately less well - without. "What is going on?" I ask. "It is 10 years since the clinic started. 10 years since MSF first started the HIV treatment programme and proved that it could be done in Africa. So the staff are celebrating. They are doing a show or something." The sister in charge of the clinic has moved to the front of the crowd of patients. She calls for silence and then gives a short introduction. Lele translates for me. "She is saying that this is a very important day. 10 years ago people were dying. And 10
3 comments
Read more

Ceza Hospital

I am woken with a jolt. The 4-wheel drive has left the tarmac and we are on dirt road. I look ahead into the hills – the road wends its way high up into the distance. “How far?” I ask Amos, our driver. “About 40km.” I settle back and watch as the settlements become less and less pseudo-bungalows and more and more mud rondavels. The road to Ceza It was about a month ago that our medical manager first mentioned that we had been asked to help out at Ceza Hospital – a remote rural hospital about 2 hours away. Its medical staff (only 8 at the best of times) had been steadily departing and only one remained. He was leaving at the end of May and they were desperate. Desperate enough to accept help from us. As I said – a month ago – but it was only last Thursday that I found myself agreeing to go. Two of the others had been that week. I phoned them to ask what it was like. “There are no words to describe it,” said Nomfundo, “speak to Dr Kekana.” Dr Kekana comes on the line and after humming an
3 comments
Read more