Friday, April 25, 2008
Disillusioned doctor says "SA, go to hell!"
Posted by: The Doc, South Africa on 4:44am Tue 26 Feb 08
I'm a northern European medical doctor. A senior surgeon,
working in the public sector of South Africa . I have done so the last
5 years. I do not want to speak outside my discipline, so this will be
about the medical demise of SA. Most visitors to South Africa , who
encounter the public health sector, do so by visiting a hospital or a
clinic in or near the big cities. What they get to see is a hospital
or a clinic, which is working, but not up to Western standards.
Before I came down here, I believed that pre-94 South Africa had
a very good health care system for the white population, and nothing
for the black. I soon discovered that was not the case. The
Calvinistic white rulers of South Africa had built an elaborate
network of public hospitals, reaching the outermost societies of this
large country. We are talking about 5-600 beds hospitals far out in
the rural areas.
Before 1994, they were well manned and equipped, and complicated
procedures were carried out there. I know this. I've been to these
hospitals and spoken to the people working there. I have gone through
old patient files and surgical statistics. These were hospitals that
catered for the black population.
This web of hospitals as I can see must have covered more or
less 100% of South Africa 's population, including the former
Bantustans or homelands. I know that the same situation was present as
to schools. The ANC ran a couple of campaigns like "Election before
education" and "To make the country ungovernable" . As part of that,
most rural schools were burnt down.
Keeping in mind the traditionally very violent African culture
down here, one perfectly understands why the hospitals built by the
apartheid government, did not suffer the same fate. This has left us
with a window to the past; we can clearly see that the apartheid
government did not only care for their white population, but in fact,
also took great responsibility for the black, at something that must
have been an enormous cost.
Back to visiting South African hospitals… When doing so, the
visitor will be shown one of a few hospitals, where not too many
windows are broken, not all the equipment has been vandalized and not
all the electric supply has been cut off. Now, go outside these
hospitals, go to the former rural hospitals, and what do you find? You
will find that the hospitals built for the black population, by the
black ANC government, have been degraded and left unfunded. You will
find hospitals with no doctors. Hospitals with no electricity. No
X-ray equipment. No furniture. You actually will find old rural
hospitals inhabited by squatters!
It is for me a huge paradox that the black government seems to
have zero compassion for their own population, as long as they can get
away with it and no one can or will see it. The black population has
not by magic become so much healthier after 1994 that these hospitals
are not needed anymore. Au contraire, the black population is in dire
need of these hospitals, but all they find are ghost hospitals. Many
of which I've visited, are beyond repair.
I am leaving South Africa now. I have paid my duties, and I am
forever marked by Africa in the form of an entry and exit 9 mm bullet
hole in my right upper leg. I got it because my robber was not happy
with me handing over my 10 year old or something Nokia 6110 cellphone,
and some small coins.
No wallet, no rings and only amalgam fillings… Now, what kind of
doctor is that? My last word to South Africa : Go to hell!
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