Skip to main content

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.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

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...

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...

The first rule about run club

This is what death will be like. My heart is pounding, chest constricting, I can barely lift my foot from the ground. The sweat pours from me and my head pounds. It is Thursday run club. An hour ago Ibby was rounding us all up, exhorting us to get a move on, and allocating us to vehicles so we could lurch through Freetown’s commuter traffic to Lumley Beach on the west side of town. Half way there, the traffic solid and the heat stifling we hailed a street trader and we bought packets of drinking water (improbably branded “CLIMAX”) and biscuits (incongruously labelled “made in the UK for Aldi”). A King’s Sierra Leone Partnership tradition – started by Ibby some years ago – the whole team go beach running after work every Thursday. “The route’s fine” they tell me. “Flat, and you can 5k or 7.5k”. It started well enough but it’s 28 degrees and my pale body is unprepared. The route is straightforward but weaving in and out of other runners, stray dogs, unexpected ga...