Eastern Cape student heroes face the virus storm

Rachel Gardiner dons mask, visor, gloves and scrubs, and heads into another volunteer shift at the Groote Schuur Hospital Covid-19 testing centre in Cape Town.

For the next six hours she will be screening and taking nasal swabs from dozens of patients before thoroughly disinfecting and knocking off.

The former Hudson Park High School head girl is one of several UCT medical students from the Eastern Cape who have been volunteering in the UCT Surgical Society initiative that has seen students from all of SA’s medical universities conducting tests, staffing the Covid-19 hotline and doing contact tracing.

Gardiner, 24, is in her final year of study to become a doctor and was only six months from graduation when the pandemic hit, studies were suspended and lockdown began.

“It was tough to feel so close to being qualified and yet so useless, so it’s great to have an avenue to help out our overburdened healthcare workers in any way possible,” Gardiner said.

As the number of infections rises rapidly in SA and health services come under increasing pressure, she said the testing centre had become busier and busier.

Her job is to screen patients and administer tests.

“It is basically a large ear bud that swabs deep in each nostril. It is really uncomfortable — many people cough or move around or grab onto, so that is what makes it more high-risk in a sense, this aersolisation and increased physical contact.”

However, she said there were strict safety measures in place.

“We are provided with N95 masks and adequate PPE [personal protective equipment], and we all take extra precautions like showering as soon as we get home and washing our scrubs immediately.

“We don’t take anything out of the centre, including pens and so on.

“We keep the shoes we wear in the hospital in our car boots and then wear different shoes into our homes — so that adds to feeling safe, taking those extra precautions.”

Fourth-year medical student and former Clarendon High School for Girls student Catherine Ball has been working gruelling 12-hour shifts on the Covid-19 hotline at the disaster management centre in Tygerberg.

Like Gardiner, she joined the volunteer effort because she wanted to do something to help.

Originally the inquiries were about symptoms and lockdown regulations, but now the volunteers are giving out test results and advising on social and economic issues like grants and relief funds available.

“Every time you finish a call the phone rings again straight away,” she said. “It’s emotionally draining.”

Grey High School old boy Joshua Benjamin from Port Elizabeth is, like Gardiner, in his sixth year of medical school at UCT.

He has been carrying out contact tracing in Khayelitsha township in Cape Town.

From home he works through a spreadsheet for each case, contacting a Covid-positive person and gathering as many details as possible of who they had been in contact with, then contacting them too.

He said talking to people who had recently received positive results and sometimes had already lost loved ones to the virus could be tough.

“We try to do our best and are trained to give bad news, but more professional psychological help is needed for many people,” he said.

Andrew Slaughter, head of mathematics at Hudson Park and Gardiner’s teacher from grades 10 to 12, is not surprised to hear she is on the front lines of the Covid-19 battle.

“Certainly [she is] an individual who looks for reasons to get things done, rather than looking for reasons to procrastinate and not get anything done,” he said, adding she was an outstanding student with exceptional academic talent and leadership ability.

Gardiner said it was great to have an avenue to help overburdened healthcare workers in any way possible, but it could also  be overwhelming.

“I have met so many patients during the last two months who are unable to self-isolate because they live in an informal dwelling with multiple other people, or who cannot afford to stay away from work as they have lost their financial security due to the Covid pandemic,” she said.

Additionally there is much stigma around the virus.

“Many people ask for their sick notes not to specify why they are booked off from work. This misinformation and fear is a real hindrance to overcoming this disease.

“The effects of this virus go beyond illness. It can feel overwhelming confronting this reality every day.”

But amid the crisis there is the occasional bright spot.

 Ball said: “A woman phoned as she hadn’t received her test results yet and was very concerned.

“I was able to check her results on the system and let her know that they had come back negative.

“Her screams of rejoice and relief were a rare moment of positivity during the pandemic.”