Skip to main content

Ghost hospital

The sun is bright and the air cold as Hendy and I walk to the wards on Tuesday morning. We are, after all, approaching the depth of winter. We enter the central area of the hospital. Ceza is more compact than Hlabisa. It is an old mission hospital, founded in the late 40s. The lab, switchboard, offices and wards all open onto the same covered walkway. Hendy heads off to paeds, I head to the medical wards.

Yesterday Dr Ndlovu, a physician at Thulasizwe TB hospital a few km down the road and in possession of the most dangly ear-rings I have ever seen, gave us a quick tour. The wards are only around a third full and it feels something of a ghost hospital – the word has been spread: there is no doctor at Ceza. Patients are going elsewhere. After our tour I dropped into the wards to introduce myself and ask if there were any problems – it had of course been 3 days since they were last seen. “No,” says Sister, “go home and rest. You can come tomorrow.”

I walk onto female medical. Sister in-charge, a formidable lady with a tremendously loud voice, grabs my hand as I walk in. “Hauw Doctor! Thank you for coming. We will not let you go.” Judging from the strength of her grip she is not necessarily speaking metaphorically. “This nurse will help you.” With her other hand she grabs a hapless junior and throws them at me.



There are just under 20 patients. Some have been admitted by nurses over the weekend – presumably there was no doctor. They have written a line or two (“Difficulty in breathing for three days. Fever and cough. ?Pneumonia.”) and started basic treatment. Most of them were here last week and our colleagues from Hlabisa have assessed them and written plans. One poor 12 year girl has a pnuemothorax from old TB, another lady had a massive gaping wound in her left armpit (I could stick my fist in it if I was sick enough to try) after a private GP tried to do a lymph node biopsy and it became infected. She has big nodes in her neck as well – almost certainly TB. There are even a few patients with non-TB/HIV problems: hypertension, an elderly lady with confusion, an acute psychosis. The round take a couple of hours – I need to learn each patient. I waffle at the nurses, spouting a few facts.

“This lady probably has lactic acidosis – a condition that can occur with certain drugs used to treat HIV.” I say, perhaps a little pompously.

“Ah,” says Mr Buthelezi, the nurse I am going around with, “lactate is produced as a consequence of anaerobic respiration is it not?” I am a little startled. Mr Buthelezi – probably in his 40s - explains that he learned this when he went back to school recently in order to become a nursing student. He also learned the principles of fermentation “but I don’t do that anymore,” he says with a grin, “not since I gave myself to Jesus.”

Male ward is a little quicker and we are all done by 1pm. The hospital manager’s secretary phones me – lunch has been left for us in the office. We have a quiet afternoon in outpatients and all the work is finished by 4pm.

I could learn to like it here.

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