1st day of work!

Sanibonani (Hello Everyone)!

                Today was my first day at Manguzi Provincial Hospital and needless to say the day was filled with new experiences, new faces, and new stories. I began the day with a wake-up knock and good-morning from my host mama (although she has one child, she is very youthful and more like my host older sister than host mama). Side note: Although our house is beautiful, big, and filled with modern accommodations, we do not have running water; therefore we must use rainwater, and take wash-ups instead of showers. I realize now how important investment in public infrastructure really is to the true success of a community and population, more importantly I realize how little water we actually need to do daily tasks, so do better America! We began our day with a short walk to work. Manguzi is filled with sandy dirt roads, wire fences keeping in chickens, and areas that house an entire extended family, fully equipped with different houses, a shed for yard work, and an animal bin where chicken and other small livestock can mozy about.   We took the short walk from our house, past the bustling town center, up to the driveway of the hospital. Once we entered the barbed wire gates, the hospital looked more like a military base than a hospital. There our host mother waited for us to be seen by the hospital manager and our supervisor before leaving us to walk to work. As we waited, we sat with women who were waiting for an ultrasound, and in walked a young girl with her mother. The young girl, she could not have been over 14, was clearly pregnant, she looked as if she did not want to come and she had been crying. The other women who were sitting and waiting looked at her with a mix of amusement, disgust, and sheer rejection.

As she sat on the bench to wait, those sitting there moved and sat on another one. Later on, I would see many other young mothers in the maternity ward, which functions without anesthesia.  After waiting for a short while, the manager saw us quickly, and directed us to our supervisor, a young Nigerian female doctor from the UK who was here for a year contract before finishing her MD degree. The hospital, which had living grounds for the doctors, was organized into wards; the outpatient department, emergency unit, maternity ward, pediatric ward, allied health (nutrition, physical therapy, mental health etc.), social work, HIV and TB, highly drug resistant TB ward, female ward, male ward, surgical theater, and mortuary. It is fully equipped with a full laundry, cafeteria, and social services to help patients, and those is need pay a one-time fee of $20 rand (about $3) to be served.

                Many people will come in the morning by foot or by bus if from a more rural area, and wait all day to be seen. Manguzi also oversees rural clinics that manage local healthcare for the 10 or so rural areas in KZN and near the Mozambique border. With all of these resources, a staff of 15 full-time doctors, needless to say I was completely overwhelmed… Let’s recap: I am a public policy major with a concentration on global health and African American studies… definitely not pre-med. And because of this, I had the realization and fear that I may not be able to make the difference, let’s say, I did at Aid Atlanta or Project P.O.W.E.R., and I may not know what questions to ask, or jump with awe at the sight of my first surgery, but I hope that I can at least learn. Our days at the hospital will begin at 7:30am where we sit in on the planning meeting of the doctors on staff, then we will proceed by picking a doctor to shadow that day, or go to the ward that most interests us. Being at the hospital today reminded me that as Americans we tend to see community service with much structure, our times and hours of service are fixed and recorded, we are often given a reward, but as cultural concepts change across borders, so does the idea of service. Many doctors and nurses here work well past their hours, and take on treating the whole patient, body, mind, and soul. I hope that I can overcome my own cultural limitations and help when and where help is needed, and take any other time to soak it all in!           

With an abundance of nurses, orderlies, and volunteers from all over the world I really hope that I can be of help, unfortunately the language barrier is a pain! Most people I run into speak Zulu to me without a flinch, and I sadly must respond with my go-to phrases (see blog above). Most people will look at me confused and laugh, but some will continue on in Zulu, as if they don’t believe me… and then laugh. Oh well! Hopefully in the next few weeks I can brush up on my language skills and make some new friends.