Skip to main content

Monday AM

“So when did the diarrhoea start?” I ask the mother, and then pause. A lone female voice is lifted in song in the outpatients waiting area. Others join in beautiful harmony and syncopation. I look at the nurse who is helping me: “I love the singing – let’s go and see?”

“You want to join in?”

“May be another time – just watch today.” She leads the way out and there, lined up in front of the doors to the consulting cubicles are the OPD day staff singing songs of praise. The patients who have been sleeping in the department overnight join in. Some may have arrived too late to be seen yesterday. Others had to wait for the morning for transport. The harmonies echo off the high ceiling and reverberate around the room.

At the end one of the male nurses, Ziggi, says “Let us pray” or at least I assume that is what he says. A low muttering fills the room as everyone prays under their breath. A couple of the nurses catch my eye and grin.

Then, after a brief silence, the line breaks up and it is back to work. It is 6:30am. I had a good sleep and was woken only to see a baby with severe diarrhoea – the nurses had already stuck in an IV line (just as well because I have yet to succeed in sticking drips into 2 month old babies) and given fluids even as I was hopping around my room in the pitch black trying to find my clothes in a power outage.

I see a couple of other patients and then nip to the office for the tearful Monday morning reunion with my colleagues, my mood of cheerful euphoria at seeing them after 60 hours a stark contrast to their classic Monday morning monosyllabism. I sigh, sit back and contemplate my next Weekend of Fun.

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

The Hlabisa Family

The sun is low in the sky by the time I turn off the highway and join the road to Hlabisa. All around me the hills are basking in rich yellow light, in front of me the road drops in and out of sight as it follows their undulations to the horizon. Along the grass verge people are slowly making their way home, stray dogs bark lethargically at each other and minibus taxis hurtle past me, defying death for at least one more day. It is rather like one might imagine the closing scene of Mr Benn, had it been made in Africa. It is dark as I pass out of the game park and into Hlabisa itself. A hot wind blows the occasional coke can skittering across the town’s wide, and only, street. There is a curious multi-coloured glow up ahead and as I pass the shops it resolves into a small illuminated sign strung across the road: “Happy Christmas!” And behind it another, “Welcome to Hlabis” – the “a” is broken. I grin – there are also illuminations on the lamp-posts – a multicoloured candle, Father Christ...
4 comments
Read more