Challenging doctor's visits
I had an interesting experience on Monday the 12th. I took three children to St John’s Eye Hospital in Soweto, leaving home at 5am. We dropped off two others at Leratong Eye hospital on the way. We arrived later than I had hoped as our early morning meeting place was misunderstood by one of the parents.
So, at 8.30am we got to the hospital. We asked someone at a table in the entrance area where to go and were directed down a passage. There we couldn’t find anyone except a very busy doctor seeing one patient after another. Eventually we got seated somewhere, then moved to the queue – but some very irate people said we had pushed in (because I was white; really, I promise, we were just following orders; I may look like a middle–aged white madam nowadays, but I do try not to behave like one!) – so we had to move back to the last bench.
The arrangement was this: there were nine hard, wooden benches where everyone sat in the queue (although there was also another queue outside that formed in time). The doctor sat on a wheeled chair at the left corner of the front bench. A nurse sat near a small table that he used for his instruments. There was a cross on the wall behind them where patients were asked to look while he was examining them. As each patient got to the head of the queue, the doctor examined him or her, explained the problem, made an appointment to sort out the problem with the appropriate department, or sent them into an inner room.
We sat from 9am to 1.34pm. My bottom got pretty sore and the kids, very bored. I left to find some food for the children who hadn’t been given breakfast as their young moms had not brought food with them (why not?). We took the kids to the loo every now and then. I read something for my infant observation course – luckily very absorbing. I handed around the biscuits and chocolates I had brought, and paper and crayons to keep them busy for a bit.
Every now and then the nurse would ask people to talk more quietly so that the doctor could hear his patients. Then slowly the hubbub would rise again and she would again ask again... There was a nurse’s tea break at 11am that lasted till 12.10pm, although they said they would be back at 11.30am. The doctor appeared not to take a break. He was in the inner room examining the patients he had sent there earlier.
Once we got to the front of the queue, the doctor quickly diagnosed the children. The two little ones needed operations to sort out their squints; one also needed cataracts removed. There would be a good outcome for them he said. The older child (noone knows her birth date, but she is about 12) would have a less positive outcome as she had come in too late, but would also need an operation. They were given an appointment for two days later, and now need to go back on the 28th of March for, we think, the procedures...
But at least two little girls have a good chance of reasonable vision. The older girl has already failed a year through struggling to see. Unfortunately her primary school teachers have not sufficient training or knowledge (and perhaps not the compassion or will?) to help her overcome her disability. An indictment on our teacher-training colleges, I am afraid.
St John’s Hospital will do the procedures for free. It is not a very pleasant experience to get help but it does work in the end and I know that it must be hard for the hospital to get the funds and enough staff to do this life-changing and enhancing work, so I do salute them – although my bottom was really flattened (and I am so grateful for being able to use private medical services myself – in a very craven and selfish way I am afraid).
South Africa has a long way to go before all its people have really respectful, timeous and comfortable access to medical care. (And I think St John’s is really one of the best available services, with the nurses actually quite pleasant and the doctor hurried but thorough and explaining things carefully).
I am glad I stayed and sat – it was an experience I needed to have.