Skip to main content

Incommunicado continued

So, as I was saying, we were cut-off.

I turn to the midwife. “Do you have MTN?” I have found on a few occasions that when Vodacom and Telkom fail, South Africa’s other major phone network inexplicably seems to survive. We check all the midwives phones and one has MTN. She only has a few minutes credit but graciously lets me make a call. I phone Nicky, a colleague at Hlabisa.

“Nicky, can you call me back straight away?” She does and I explain the situation. She gets on the case, phoning all our nearby hospitals. The midwives and I chat whilst we wait, the groans from the woman next door getting louder and louder. It seems an eternity before Nicky calls.

“Bad news I am afraid Ed. Nongoma only have one doctor and all the other hospitals said no.”

“What?” I reply, righteous indignation rising like bile in my throat.

“I tried to explain things but they all said that you should send the patient somewhere different.”

I swear again, this time not under my breath. “I will have to send them to you at Hlabisa then.” Nicky gets on the phone again to speak to the Hlabisa on calls and minutes later our medical manager phones back on the nurses phone – he is on call mercifully. I explain the situation and then he rings off promising to sort something out. Two hours have passed since I arrived in maternity.

I nip back to the accommodation and grab a coffee with Olstein. “How will you transfer her?” he asks. We are at least an hour from the nearest ambulance base and they will not come to pick up until we can confirm where she is going. Her transfer is going to get dangerously delayed. As we walk back to maternity an ambulance passes us on the exit road from the hospital having just dropped a patient in OPD.

“Run!” shouts Olstein. We both peg it down the hill to the hospital gate after the ambulance.

“Stop! Stop!” The guard is opening the gate.

“Don’t let that ambulance go!” I shout. The guard is waving it through.

“Stop!” The guard looks up and can only be startled to see two crazy visiting doctors with shaved heads hurtling down the hill, limbs flailing and yelling. He bangs on the ambulance as it drives through. It halts. Breathlessly we both catch up with it. The driver looks at us somewhat quizzically. We explain the situation and, unlike our medical colleagues in other hospitals, he quickly grasps the problem. He radios the headquarters. They give him permission to do the transfer and we all head back to maternity. Dr Adam phones. Nongoma’s medical manager is going in to help their one doctor so they section can be done there.

We load the woman into the ambulance and watch it drive out of the gate.

“I’m definitely changing mobile network,” I say to Olstein as we head back to the house to put our feet up and finish watching "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe."

Comments

bwanapoakabisa said…
Phones.....sometimes you wonder what the real use of them is..... welcome to South Africa my friend.

PT
27 June 2007 at 19:24
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