First Glimpse at the "OTHER" South Africa

"Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore..."

After the first ten days or so enjoying life in the "southern suburbs" (ie, wealthy and white), yesterday I had my first taste of the other South Africa. What is amazing about the success of the apartheid system, is that they were able to create two very separate societies, with very little contact with each other. In fact, for the whites, you could almost never know what existed on the other side of the tracks.

So, my colleagues from the School of Pharmacy at the University of Western Cape were going to visit two of their community service sites, so I joined them on the trip. Both sites were in the Cape Flats township, a huge sprawling area where millions of people live, barely. Here's an intersting article about the Cape Flats: http://www.capeflats.org.za/modules/journey/townships.php

The first stop was a health clinic in a neighborhood called South Delpht; and the second stop was at a "day hospital" in a neighborhood called "Mitchell's Plain." At the first stop we took one of our students who is in her 5th year "internship" at the clinic. We drove through what seemed like miles of shanties, homes made out of corrugated metal and pieces of cardboard, through miles of "new public housing" (small boxes built out of cinder block with tin roofs), and ultimately got to the clinic. There were a couple of hundred people in the waiting room, hoping to see a doctor --one of the three available. As you sit in the waiting room, you eventually get called up and given a number. And if you are one of the first 300, you get an appointment. If not, you have to come back the next day. We went with the student to see her supervisor in the HIV unit. The student's job is to talk with the patients, and look for signs of contra-indications from the HIV medicine that the patients are taking. The issue is that the doctors are so busy, that they just don' t have the time to really notice these signs, and so the UWC school of pharmacy is developing a project that gets the pharmacists more directly involved in patient care, and not only in drug dispensing.

Here's the amazing thing. This was virtually a brand new facility. New paint on the walls; clean floors; windows and doors intact. And yet, given the volume of people who came through, it already felt tired. You could feel the tension on the nurses and doctors faces, as they did their best in what was clearly an overwhelming situation.

Then we said goodby to the student, and went to the second stop, the hospital at Mitchell's Plain. We were introducing the new UWC "facilitator" to the staff. He is a pharmacist from Zambia named Daniel, and his job will be to supervise the service learning students when they are at the hospital. We met with the chief pharmacist, a man named Nordeen, who was incredibly nice. He had been working at the hospital for over 20 years, and supervised a crew of 4 pharmacists and 8 assistants. There were 4 windows of drug dispensing counters, each manned by 2 people, and they were filling prescriptions and handing out drugs like you wouldn't believe. The hospital has 3 doctors, and sees over 1,000 people/day. Many, struggling with HIV and/or TB. You can imagine what it is like to try and treat this many people, especially with such complex medications as the anti-HIV "cocktails." And especially with a population that is not very literate.

As you can see from this linked article, Mitchell's Plain has about 1 million residents, mostly unemployed. This is the ONLY hospital serving the area! http://www.southafrica.info/doing_business/economy/development/urban/mitchellsplain-complex_231003.htm

Overall, I was amazed at how helpful the staff were; how they were able to deliver services with such grace and compassion, when facing such an onslaught of need.

Truly, this was my first glimpse into the OTHER South Africa. Unfortunately, this OTHER world is how the majority of the population lives here, completely out of site (and out of mind?) of those who live in neighborhoods like ours --the plush and comfy amongst us.

More on the service learning project of the School of Pharmacy later.

Blog ya./.

Seth./.