Skip to main content

Strike

“Did your patient make it to Empangeni?” Hendy asks. It is Wednesday morning and we are drinking coffee on the stoep in the morning sun. I was on call last night. Well, I say on call. OPD was empty by 6pm, we watched a DVD and I was not disturbed again. And to think I was reluctant to come here.

“I think so,” I reply, “Why?”

“Because mine got sent back?”

“What?!”

“The ambulance got to the hospital and the strikers turned it away.”

Last Friday was the start of the first big general strike since South Africa went truly democratic. Government employees are striking over an unsatisfactory pay settlement. Hospitals, ours included, have been displaying big posters reminding people that hospital staff are considered "essential" employees (from nurses to cleaners) and are not permitted to strike. Ha!

The cities were affected first and badly so. At the weekend we huddled around TVs watching the news run pictures of people being turned away by picketers outside all of Durban’s biggest hospitals – the ones we rely on for many of our complex referrals. The South Africans in particular felt like they were watching the breakdown of society.

"Patients have died in Jo'burg," one of them tells me. A good friend of hers works at Baragwanath hospital in Soweto - there are armed soldiers on every ward at present because the level of intimidation has been so high. People asked me whether we have strikes in the UK. “Sure” I replied. But nurses? Closing hospitals? It made Britain (where firemen check to make sure the army is ready to take over before striking) seem rather tame.

Hendy and I don’t do surgery so we spent our first day busily identifying problems and getting them out of Ceza quickly. He sent a couple of ladies in labour that were progressing badly to the obstetric referral hospital – they made it through. His lady who needed an evacuation of retained products of conception did not and the ambulance had to turn around. He gets on the phone to Hlabisa to ask one of our colleagues there to do it. I nip to Maternity – yes my patient made it. Because, as it turns out, the transfer happened at 11pm and the strikers had got tired and gone home.

There are no strikers at Ceza. Why not, I ask? The answer comes back: it is “No work, no pay” and in these poor communities that is a threat not to be taken lightly.

Comments

Post a Comment

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...
3 comments
Read more

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...
Post a Comment
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