- JOHANNESBURG, South Africa
-- The Star newspaper reports that while striking health workers and -nurses
were screaming violent protest songs and dancing outside filth-strewn
Johannesburg Hospital, a 12- year-old Soweto boy had to undergo a delicate,
three-hour life- saving heart operation. The surgeons and nurses, guarded
by soldiers, are still working inside, faced with massive challenges:
an incredibly filthy hospital, the constant din of the month-long health
workers' strike and madly-'toyi-toyi'-ing nurses right outside the operating
theatres.
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- Background on the ' toyi-toyi '- the often very aggressive,
intimidating South African protest dance:
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- LINK - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyi-toyi
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- Although nurses and doctors are prohibited by SA law
from going on strike as they are deemed part of essential services, 60
percent of them downed tools on June 1 anyway - joining tens of thousands
of other public servants countrywide in demanding a general salary increase
of 10 percent, (less than inflation level!) and already whittled down
from the original 12 percent in talks with the ANC- regime.
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- Yet at Johannesburg 's gigantic apartheid-era-built hospital
overlooking the city of 'gold', twelve-year-old Sowetan boy Siphamandla
Mbatha was this week undergoing a delicate, three-hour operation - sponsored
by The Star newspaper - to remove part of the membrane around his heart
and thus save his life. Johannesburg Hospital, which performs all of the
State's heart surgery in this region, has a surgery waiting list of 300
empoverished, desperately ill children. Little Siphamandla needed urgent
surgery if he was to survive another day.
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- The team of "civilian-clothed" surgeons led
by Krubin Naidoo and Kathy Vanderdonck took three hours to repair Siphamandla's
heart at theatre H35. Yet just metres away from the theatre, striking
nurses dressed in red and black waved placards and toyi-toyied in the
corridors outside. Armed soldiers stood guard to protect the working
staff.
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- The public sector strike, now in its fourth week, has
severely disrupted hospitals and schools across the country. At Johannesburg
Hospital, the effect was clear.The Star reports that the bins in the
basement parking lot overflowed with rubbish while the floors of the hospital
were grubby and littered with dirt. Cooldrink cans and chocolate wrappers
lay scattered on the hospital benches. Buckets full of medical waste lay
undisposed.
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- Armed soldiers - brought in to maintain order and keep
the hospital running - also sweep floors and help non-striking workers
attend to patients. None of the non-striking hospital staff wear uniforms.A
staff member who spoke to The Star said a nurse had just been assaulted
by striking colleagues in the hospital corridors.
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- Trade-union posters stuck along the wall alerted people
that the hospital was only seeing to emergency cases until the strike
ended.
- At the hospital's "green block", just metres
from the operating theatres, about 10 striking nurses sang revolutionary
songs and stomped their feet. One placard, among the many they hoisted,
read: "Manto don't think it's over. There is secondary rejection
and you'll back our hands back off" - in reference to the health
minister's mysterious liver transplant performed at the hospital three
months ago.
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- LINK:
- http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php? set_id=1&click_id=125&art_id=vn20070627022652417C352278
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- A South African soldier's story:
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- Since the beginning of the strike on June 1, defence
force members have been deployed at hospitals countrywide to fortify police
efforts to maintain law and order. This was prompted by government concern
that nurses who worked while their colleagues were picketing outside the
hospitals were threatened with violence.
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- The situation now is so desperate that, in addition to
the deployment of army medical personnel, ordinary members of the force
were also called in to help with medical operations. Defence force personnel,
interviewed by the newsmedia, said it was a very distressing situation
for often very desperately ill people all over the country.
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- One reserve officer with 13 years' experience, given
the cover name of Jack Collins, was deployed with his platoon at King
Edward hospital in Durban two weeks ago.
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- He said only the obstetrics and intensive care units
were still open."We got called on a Sunday afternoon and were told
the hospital needed manpower. By 5pm we were (at the hospital), with
our kit, weapons, ammunition and sleeping bags issued. We were not given
orders, except to protect people and the building," said the Durban
man.
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- "I told my platoon to keep a low profile and not
provoke the crowds outside," he said.The soldiers were deployed at
strategic points in the hospital. Once they had settled, Collins walked
around inspecting if all was well. He said he had rubbed shoulders with
plain-clothes medical staff who feared for their lives.
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- "The mood was of determination and fear. The problem
was that anyone with an access card could come into the hospital and inspect
the wards to see who was working and who wasn't. That's how the threats
come."
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- Little did he know that a life-changing experience was
awaiting him.
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- "I came into the labour ward and offered to help
there. The nurse happily obliged." There were only two doctors and
two nurses for 26 women in the labour ward. Soon the soldier was being
shown how to extract amniotic fluid from the newborn babies.
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- "The nurse said, right, you take a baby like this,
turn it upside down. You take this tube, put it in the nose like this
and push it down this far into the baby. Take a syringe, put it in there
and then you suck all the fluid out of the stomach. I thought to myself,
'Oh, that's interesting'."But the experience was about to turn even
more interesting for this doting father of two."The nurse looked
at me and said, 'You see one, you do one, you teach one'.
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- I said to her, 'I'm quite happy to help, but I'm a little
nervous about this. But every baby's life is precious'. "She looked
at me and said, 'You know, that's not even a thought. We're so blase
here, we don't even think like that any more'. That, to me, was a bit
surprising." Reluctantly, Collins started applying what he'd learnt.
He was getting better with each baby.
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- "I did a good couple of them." But what was
disturbing was to see a row of six babies on a metal shelf, with nothing
but a piece of paper for identification. Their names were scribbled in
pencil and the pieces of paper were placed next to their heads. "I
said to the nurse, 'But what if the babies get mixed around?'
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- She said, 'Oh they get mixed up sometimes. You know,
it happens'. That really bothered me, but I didn't know what to say or
do."With 12 of the 26 women in labour on the night, the soldier had
to quickly graduate from draining amniotic fluids from babies to delivering
them."I delivered the first boy, and then half an hour later the
second boy came. About two hours later, the third baby, a girl, came.
During this time, nurses were hovering back and forth attending to all
the women and coming to check if I was doing all right.
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- "Fortunately, all three births were quite straightforward.
Only later did I think to myself, 'Wow, did I just do that? What if something
had actually gone wrong there?'"Collins said his involvement in the
army was his way of servicing the social contract."I believe as citizens,
we benefit by having a stable economy and access to services. This is
my way of paying back."He has described his experience at the hospital
as unforgettable and absolutely brilliant."I had tears in my eyes
and was crying through the whole process. I mean, here I was doing something
so real, that is about people's lives. To have that kind of direct personal
effect on someone's life was really emotional."
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- LINK
- http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php? set_id=1&click_id=125&art_id=vn20070624082858152C786081
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- Durban St Aiden's hospital burns:
- http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php? set_id=1&click_id=125&art_id=nw20070626104718257C837098?
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