Day 10, The strike continues and we were even more stripped of staff today as even the domestics weren’t allowed in. We’ve heard stories about the strikes escalating in more urban parts of the country and in one nearby hospital they have had to transfer out most of their patients to ensure they are given care.
The outpatient department is unusually empty most of the day. We haven’t figured out whether people are scared of coming near the hospital, whether patients are being turned away by the strikers or whether they just reckon there won’t be anyone to look after them.
We have all mucked in with jobs such as getting the patients their food, mopping the floors, and restocking the ward. In some ways this has given us an opportunity to organize the wards from the chaos that is usually manifested. We were helped by the medical students who have beavered away trying to do as much as they can as well as the longer resident doctors rounding up folk to volunteer and help out. They were doing things like cooking the patients’ meals, doing the dishes and working the laundry.
I asked the sister who had made it in to work whether there will be any repercussions for her. She said that as she came into work people were calling her a “rat”. These are of course the very same staff that have worked with her for years on end. She was usually a theatre nurse and had not been on a ward for a long time and though she was doing her best she was finding it very difficult to look after patients there.
Those patients that we do have are suffering. An elderly man, a baba, has been in for the past few days with kidney failure. We were trying our best but this morning his condition deteriorated, presumeably not helped by the lack of nursing monitoring at present. He needs dialysis and more intensive care and as such I spoke to a renal unit in Durban, their doctors hadn’t been let into the hospital and were having to send their patients to private hospitals. I tried sending him to the local dialysis unit in Empangeni, they were full up and were being affected by the strikes as well. He is still hanging in there but I genuinely don’t know how much longer he’ll be able to.
One of my flatmates, the hospital dietician, says the last time these strikes happened it took 4 weeks to resolve them. Apparently the situation is worse this time round.
The comments are getting less... Reuben - who else have you told about this blog? Or is it just your family + a few others.
ReplyDeleteThis is all making for compelling reading Ruben!
ReplyDeleteDude, just come home, screw perspective and being thankful for what we have, we conquered the world for the right to be rich and take things for granted.
ReplyDeleteIf you want to wallow in chaos and wretched poverty go back to India, at least you know people there ;)
Anyway good to see your video but next time film yourself so we can see if you're still alive, it sounded like you were doing accents again, really should cut that crap out.
What can I say, it's not quite what I signed up for or expected but its definitey an experience. Its actually fun in a strange way, don't know if that feelign will last though!
ReplyDelete