Author's posts
Our country needs a debridement: A South African physician reflects
This week sees myself in the office only for a few hours. I decided to drive across the city yesterday to meet with supportive friends for lunch. All three of us are fully vaccinated. Along the way in the suburbs, there were still people parked at stra…
The medical team is at a breaking point
It was a cold day in Durban. Sixteen degrees Celsius is cold for us on the East Coast of sub-tropical Africa. I had made a trip through the suburbs to drop something off for my theatre scrub sister. The roadblocks are manned by community commandos, mo…
Violent protests in a young African democracy closes a hospital
I had an uneasy weekend. On the one hand, I was watching the COVID-19 figures around the country and in my region of KwaZulu-Natal. We are waiting for the third wave to hit our hospital. Last week we stopped planned surgeries and reviewed our planning …
After COVID, now my soul can rest a little easier
I had been searching for a year. Because of the pandemic, despite the pandemic and to heal from the pandemic. Finally in May this year, I was gifted what seemed to have become an impossible task. I messaged the hospital manager: “The trees have arrived…
The COVID-19 vaccine from the South African frontlines
I have been distracting myself since the second wave. Our hospital has quietened down as far as COVID-19 cases go, and we started doing limited planned surgeries. After my last post, which detailed the overwhelming and horrific difficulties we faced du…
The “rest in peace team” during the latest wave of COVID
This is all about death. In early January 2021, my hospital was overwhelmed with COVID-19 cases as the second wave of infections hit our coastal holiday town with devastating force. The senior emergency doctor contracted the disease and was unwell. Th…
An orthopedic surgeon wants to do more
Sometimes I think. Sometimes I think and nothing happens. That seems to happen a lot during this period of the second wave of COVID-19 that has hit my hospital. Netcare Kingsway Hospital is a community private hospital and has been overwhelmed in carin…
Burials: We can’t keep up
Those were the headlines in one of the Sunday papers. He was around fifty years old and with his wife. They stood in front of me in the supermarket. He was in shorts and a light blue t-shirt, wearing beach flip-flops. Standard casual wear for the holid…
