WHEN I was designated to visit healthcare facilities in the rural Eastern Cape a few months ago, I never in a million years imagined what I would find.
As I write this now, sitting on the grounds of Nessie Knight District Hospital in the rural area of Qumbu in the former Transkei, my heart is broken.
The Eastern Cape is populated largely by black females. I have my history, heritage and family rooted in this province’s rural areas. As I’ve visited the hospitals in the past months I have, in all of them, thought much about both my grandmothers, the matriarchs of the families and my only surviving grandparents on both sides.
One was a teacher, the other a nurse. I see them in the faces of the village grannies who walk for endless stretches in scorching heat or icy cold, sticks in hand, to access government healthcare, which is indeed their right. They place their frail bodies in the hands of others, hoping these professionals will be adequately equipped to produce the results that will ensure they live healthier lives.
Yet the reality is that they are often let down by the system and sometimes healthcare professionals, who themselves are undermined by the system. It shattered my heart.
Driving to the hospitals we passed little boys and girls whose lives had begun not long ago and I found myself silently praying that if injury or illness were to befall them they would be served in an institution that would hold their life in high regard. They should never have to feel like lesser South Africans just because they live in rural areas.
Things used to be better, say long-serving healthcare professionals who have served under both the old and new dispensations. Things “used to be much better” and then almost improved for a moment, but now the lure of adventure and creativity that once was attached to serving in rural hospitals, many former mission hospitals, has given way to reluctance. Healthcare workers shun the rural hospitals because of the conditions they must work and live under.
Our intention in visiting these hospitals was never to badmouth or lambaste the government. Yes, we sought to determine the veracity of complaints from the public that these areas had been neglected, but also, if we found that this was indeed the case, to find out how to get healthcare services in these areas working again.
In all we were doing, we hoped to change for the better the lives of both the patient and the healthcare worker in the rural Eastern Cape. We wanted to help ease the burden of the nurse, the doctor, the radiographer, the pharmacist, cleaner, laundry worker, porter, clerk, ambulance driver and manager, so that each day would be a good day for saving lives.
But looking at the situation at hand it would seem that things have deteriorated to such a degree at rural hospitals that many are in the business of playing Russian roulette with the lives of our loved ones.
The things that are vital – the good access roads, functional equipment, good sanitation, water and electricity, a fully stocked pharmacy, sufficient staff, fair compensation, decent accommodation – are the stuff of dreams that have long died and in the process everyone has become despondent and accepted the current situation as the norm.
But it should not be the case. Before democracy, my grandparents, whenever they fell ill, would visit their nearest government hospitals with confidence. At the time, facilities like Mjanyane and All Saints were held in high regard.
Today when ill, both my grandmothers, if possible, avoid the numerous government hospitals in the rural areas and come to East London. Even for something as simple as treatment for hypertension.
But, unfortunately, not all are blessed enough to have this option.
For example, Mxolisi Sigaqa, aged 61.
We encountered him on our way to Tafalofefe Hospital in Centane near Butterworth. Sigaqa was being pushed and pulled to hospital in a wobbly wheelbarrow. His sister, Ntombencinci, pulled it with a piece of rope while his brother, Sikhwenkweni, pushed.
They had put a piece of sponge inside their makeshift “ambulance” to ease their ailing brother’s discomfort. He had been discharged from the hospital earlier and told to wait at home for a transfer that did not happen.
He had severe pain in his legs and torso and was unable to stand. He had been given a catheter and urine bag because he was unable to urinate. His pain had become so severe he was battling to sleep at night.
When we spotted them, they had been at it for two hours and were still a few kilometres from their destination, the Tafalofefe Hospital.
At that point we faced a Kevin Carter predicament. Carter was the photographer who took the now famous Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of a child being stalked by a vulture while covering the story of the famine in Sudan in 1993.
My first instinct as the driver of our vehicle was to give the Sigaqas a lift – surely even a journalist must draw a line between their humanity and telling a good story.
The ailing man’s eyes fixed on mine as they dragged him past the car. It was a look I will never forget. Behind my sunglasses my eyes stung with tears when my photographer colleague said “no”.
Confessing that his heart was breaking too, he said he needed to get the picture of the Sigaqas going through the hospital gates in that state.
That’s where you draw the line, I suppose, by seeking to solve the issue not only for one person, but for all the others who suffer in that manner.
At the hospital I went inside the gates, but turned the car around to face the entrance so I could see what kind of reception the family would get.
When they came through the gates there was no fuss at all, not even an offer of assistance from the security personnel. The most they got were strange stares from community members.
Only when the trio had reached the out-patient department did they get help. Mxolisi was lifted from the makeshift “ambulance” and placed into a wheelchair.
Ntombencinci said one of her greatest prayers had been that her village hospital would get, at the very least, a permanent ambulance to transport the sick from their rural homes.
Later my colleague kept repeating, “I am traumatised”. I was, too.
Healthcare services in the rural Eastern Cape are dire. There has to be a solution and government has to care enough about people like Mxolisi Sigaqa, about my grandmothers and about its people to move heaven and earth to implement a lasting solution that will equip these facilities adequately so that health professionals can get busy doing what they are meant to do – saving lives.
Vuvu Vena is health reporter for the Daily Dispatch
Heartbreak and trauma haunt our rural hospitals
As I write this now, sitting on the grounds of Nessie Knight District Hospital in the rural area of Qumbu in the former Transkei, my heart is broken.
The Eastern Cape is populated largely by black females. I have my history, heritage and family rooted in this province’s rural areas. As I’ve visited the hospitals in the past months I have, in all of them, thought much about both my grandmothers, the matriarchs of the families and my only surviving grandparents on both sides.
One was a teacher, the other a nurse. I see them in the faces of the village grannies who walk for endless stretches in scorching heat or icy cold, sticks in hand, to access government healthcare, which is indeed their right. They place their frail bodies in the hands of others, hoping these professionals will be adequately equipped to produce the results that will ensure they live healthier lives.
Yet the reality is that they are often let down by the system and sometimes healthcare professionals, who themselves are undermined by the system. It shattered my heart.
Driving to the hospitals we passed little boys and girls whose lives had begun not long ago and I found myself silently praying that if injury or illness were to befall them they would be served in an institution that would hold their life in high regard. They should never have to feel like lesser South Africans just because they live in rural areas.
Things used to be better, say long-serving healthcare professionals who have served under both the old and new dispensations. Things “used to be much better” and then almost improved for a moment, but now the lure of adventure and creativity that once was attached to serving in rural hospitals, many former mission hospitals, has given way to reluctance. Healthcare workers shun the rural hospitals because of the conditions they must work and live under.
Our intention in visiting these hospitals was never to badmouth or lambaste the government. Yes, we sought to determine the veracity of complaints from the public that these areas had been neglected, but also, if we found that this was indeed the case, to find out how to get healthcare services in these areas working again.
In all we were doing, we hoped to change for the better the lives of both the patient and the healthcare worker in the rural Eastern Cape. We wanted to help ease the burden of the nurse, the doctor, the radiographer, the pharmacist, cleaner, laundry worker, porter, clerk, ambulance driver and manager, so that each day would be a good day for saving lives.
But looking at the situation at hand it would seem that things have deteriorated to such a degree at rural hospitals that many are in the business of playing Russian roulette with the lives of our loved ones.
The things that are vital – the good access roads, functional equipment, good sanitation, water and electricity, a fully stocked pharmacy, sufficient staff, fair compensation, decent accommodation – are the stuff of dreams that have long died and in the process everyone has become despondent and accepted the current situation as the norm.
But it should not be the case. Before democracy, my grandparents, whenever they fell ill, would visit their nearest government hospitals with confidence. At the time, facilities like Mjanyane and All Saints were held in high regard.
Today when ill, both my grandmothers, if possible, avoid the numerous government hospitals in the rural areas and come to East London. Even for something as simple as treatment for hypertension.
But, unfortunately, not all are blessed enough to have this option.
For example, Mxolisi Sigaqa, aged 61.
We encountered him on our way to Tafalofefe Hospital in Centane near Butterworth. Sigaqa was being pushed and pulled to hospital in a wobbly wheelbarrow. His sister, Ntombencinci, pulled it with a piece of rope while his brother, Sikhwenkweni, pushed.
They had put a piece of sponge inside their makeshift “ambulance” to ease their ailing brother’s discomfort. He had been discharged from the hospital earlier and told to wait at home for a transfer that did not happen.
He had severe pain in his legs and torso and was unable to stand. He had been given a catheter and urine bag because he was unable to urinate. His pain had become so severe he was battling to sleep at night.
When we spotted them, they had been at it for two hours and were still a few kilometres from their destination, the Tafalofefe Hospital.
At that point we faced a Kevin Carter predicament. Carter was the photographer who took the now famous Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of a child being stalked by a vulture while covering the story of the famine in Sudan in 1993.
My first instinct as the driver of our vehicle was to give the Sigaqas a lift – surely even a journalist must draw a line between their humanity and telling a good story.
The ailing man’s eyes fixed on mine as they dragged him past the car. It was a look I will never forget. Behind my sunglasses my eyes stung with tears when my photographer colleague said “no”.
Confessing that his heart was breaking too, he said he needed to get the picture of the Sigaqas going through the hospital gates in that state.
That’s where you draw the line, I suppose, by seeking to solve the issue not only for one person, but for all the others who suffer in that manner.
At the hospital I went inside the gates, but turned the car around to face the entrance so I could see what kind of reception the family would get.
When they came through the gates there was no fuss at all, not even an offer of assistance from the security personnel. The most they got were strange stares from community members.
Only when the trio had reached the out-patient department did they get help. Mxolisi was lifted from the makeshift “ambulance” and placed into a wheelchair.
Ntombencinci said one of her greatest prayers had been that her village hospital would get, at the very least, a permanent ambulance to transport the sick from their rural homes.
Later my colleague kept repeating, “I am traumatised”. I was, too.
Healthcare services in the rural Eastern Cape are dire. There has to be a solution and government has to care enough about people like Mxolisi Sigaqa, about my grandmothers and about its people to move heaven and earth to implement a lasting solution that will equip these facilities adequately so that health professionals can get busy doing what they are meant to do – saving lives.
Vuvu Vena is health reporter for the Daily Dispatch
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