Skip to main content

Matchmaker matchmaker

Mathonsi looks up as I walk into the outpatients procedure room. “Sawubona Doctor, what do you want?”

“I’m looking for someone to help me see patients.” He turns to the three student nurses dress in white standing by him doing nothing and eyes them thoughtfully.

“Which one do you want?” He takes my hand and pulls me closer. He grabs the hand of one of the nurses. “Here, this one. She is a fine woman. She will do you well. I think you will both be very happy.” He places my hand in hers. Everyone bursts out laughing as we walk arm in arm to the consulting cubicle.


The morning goes briskly. A man with hypertension, a few probably TBs, a gastroenteritis, diabetic reviews, an acute severe pneumonia. The nurses change at 11 for coffee. My betrothed’s replacement is not so enthralled with my work style. She yawns noisily and pointedly whilst I am examining a patient and as I write the treatment card, disassembles her biro and taking the plastic ink tube, sticks it in her ear. “Are you allergic to anything?” I ask the patient. The nurse translates whilst energetically scraping the deep recesses of her ear canal.

“No doctor,” the nurse replies as the patient answers, studying the tip of her biro interior with great interest before wiping the waxy minings off upon her dress. I give her a Paddington bear hard stare in an attempt to communicate that this is puzzling behaviour for the consulting room. She stares blankly back at me. I hold my gaze for a few seconds but, damn she’s good, I have to drop first. She could have taught Paddington a thing or two.


Then to the ward. Sister Jenny, an elderly nurse whose rolling antalgic gait is a consequence of her bad hip arthritis, eyes me. “Doctor,” she shouts, “are you married.”

“No,” I reply. A chorus of mutterings and laughs erupts among the nurses.


“Hauw Doctor! You must find yourself a Zulu wife. A good Zulu wife. Our old medical director. He was English and he found a Zulu wife. You should too.” The other nurses take up the chorus and I back out, throwing on one of the paper masks – useless at preventing TB but brilliant at hiding chronic embarrassment.

The road to work

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Wherever you go...

I pull the sterile gloves over my gown sleeves and look at the nurse. “Please could you…?” I ask shrugging my shoulders in the universal “my-sterile-gown-is-about-to-fall-off” gesture. She grins and slips around the bed to fumble for the poppers at the back. I eye her name badge. Startled – I glance at her. “Your name is Ndlovu?” “Yes.” “But that is a Zulu name!” “Yes!” Her face lights up. “You have been to South Africa ?” “I was working there last year.” “Oh! Where were you working?” “Hlabisa.” She claps her hands for joy, an enormous grin crossing her face. “But I live near there. If you take the road from Mtuba to the hospital I live in a village on the right.” I laugh at the incongruity of it. Here, in the dark at 2am, on a medical ward in an Oxford hospital, working with a Zulu nurse just I did for the last year. We talk animatedly about her home. “Did you train at Hlabisa?” “No. I trained at Bethesda . Do you know it?” “Oh yes – I visi...
4 comments
Read more

Otherwordly isolation

I lean across the reception desk and catch the attendant’s eye. “Sawubona,” I say, dusting off my rusty Zulu. I see you. “Sawubona, ninjani?” she replies. I see you, are you well? “Ngiyapela.” I’m fine. She grins at me. “You must be a doctor.” “I am! How did you know?” “It is only the doctors around here who use Zulu. Even if it is only the greetings.” She arches an eyebrow. “I used to work here, at Hlabisa hospital up the road. I have a few other Zulu words, you know like ‘Does it hurt?’ and ‘Take a deep breath’.” She laughs. And then launches into an excellent impression of an elderly Zulu lady rattling off a series of complaints, waddling across the reception area clutching her back in mock agony. She gets it exactly right. I have come up to KwaZulu-Natal for a few days. Tonight I am staying in the Hluhluwhe-iMfolozi game park, 20 minutes or so from where I used to work. Awarded my entry ticket, I drive into the park. The sun is low in the sky, the kills bathed in amber light. I ta...
3 comments
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