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Blessing

This week sees me 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 strategic barriers erected to prevent free movement into the suburbs. Some of the residents still stood guard. There was less traffic on the highway and very much less traffic in the suburbs.

Our lunch, the sharing of a simple meal, was punctuated with intense discussions about the ethics of what has happened to our country, and about the wisdom of the courts. Although we are close friends and understand each other, there were differing opinions. We are also generally a positive group, which is why we are friends. Somehow there was not the same energy of positivity amongst us this time.

Later in the afternoon after we had eaten and spoken, I drove to the nearby La Lucia Mall to see if I could get some grocery shopping done. The shops where I stay had been closed all of last week and I thought the upmarket area might have better stock.

The parking area was empty and there were no queues to get into Woolworths. Everyone, shoppers and workers, were subdued. I spoke to a lady shopping. We were in the meat and poultry aisle.

“Isn’t it just crazy?” I said to start the conversation.

She paused. I was still in my scrubs. She looked at me. “Hectic. I am Muslim and there is no chicken. The meat is not Halaal.”

“Get some frozen fish? I am not sure if there is any?”

“Have you just come from work?

“Yes, I closed the office. It is so quiet.” There are other reasons, like I am overstressed and have withdrawn to have time to myslef, but I chose not to tell her that.

“OK, be safe”. I echoed the greeting and moved on. I got most of what I wanted except garlic to ward off evil spirits and chicken.

On the way out I stopped talk to the manager. I asked about stock and staff, and he was positive. He stood in front of the empty in-house coffee shop.

Happy to have enough groceries for me and others that I could share with, I pushed my trolley out into the dusk of Durban winter. 

“Doctor, doctor” I heard a voice calling out. No one should know me around here as I haven’t lived in the area for five years. I turned. A young man was running toward me. He was small, and wearing a worker’s overalls with reflective safety strips.

I stopped pushing my trolley and faced him.

“I just want to thank you for what you do for people. I am so happy you studied so hard to do what you do. God bless you.”

I had tears in my eyes. I really did not know him. Yet I felt an instant connection.

He rolled up his left sleeve and pointed to a scar on the funny bone of his elbow. “I have had a debridement” he said and pointed to his elbow. “I have met doctors like you.”

Lucky Ndlovu had no idea I was an orthopaedic surgeon. Thirty years ago I would have treated young men like him for injuries with debridement, a French term for removing damaged tissue. I debride aggressively now, and then hand over big skin defects for my plastic surgeon to close.

Our country needs a debridement, I thought to myself.

Lucky was truly grateful. I was moved. I took his number. We chatted a bit. When things are better I will go back to the La Lucia Mall and have a meal with him and talk. He inspired me more than he knows.

He alone, with his open gratitude, has given me hope to carry on.

My cherished messages from a stranger.
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Broken

Thirty years ago I stood on the rooftop of Edendale Hospital in Pietermaritzburg where I had started my orthopedic training. 

I looked up the Sweetwater Valley. It reminded me of the  opening of Alan Paton’s book, Cry, the Beloved Country:

“There is a lovely road that runs from Ixopo into the hills. These hills are grass-covered and rolling, and they are lovely beyond any singing of it. The road climbs seven miles into them, to Carisbrooke; and from there, if there is no mist, you look down on one of the fairest valleys of Africa.”

I stood on the roof of the hospital watching a swathe of a Zulu men descend as an impi down the valley, over grass-covered and rolling hills that were lovely. The army of men moved toward a trading store and before they reached it, the occupants fled. It was as if someone had released a man-eating lion in the store. Then the impi engulfed the store and it burst into flames. The war machine continued on its path of destruction and killing. They approached homesteads, schools, clinics and the occupants fled. Then the buildings burst into flames. Later we would receive the casualties at the hospital.

Ten years later I was a qualified orthopedic surgeon in private practice in Durban. It was the 17th of July 2002 when I took transfer of a patient from the local provincial hospital further south from Amanzimtoti where I work.

She was eighteen years old. Her orthopedic injuries included fractures of one arm and leg and traumatic amputations of the other arm and both her legs. She had been attacked, raped and left on railway tracks for the cold steel wheels of a train to slice her up.

Three days ago I received news that my late father’s youngest grandson had died of Covid, leaving behind his partner and two small beautiful little boys. Yesterday I was told that  a close friend of my brothers had died. He was my friend as well. The lives of our families had been intertwined from the beginning.

Today my cousin called me from Australia to commiserate.

“Every time we get news from South Africa, it’s bad news.  How are you holding up? Are you ok? Look after yourself.” I was touched by his concern. He is  compassionate and cares for many people. We joked about Australia being a “nanny state”.

Afterwards I thought about what I am writing today and was thinking of a title. 

“Bad News” did not make as much sense as when I wrote “Some Good News” when we started our vaccination program,

I write not only to share what I think are lessons and insights.   I write to help me cope. Sharing the narrative in medicine has been shown to reduce burnout. 

We were already burnt out like those buildings in that lovely green valley. Facing the third wave of Covid seemed an impossible task.

Now after last weeks event’s we are broken.

Things are broken in South Africa.

People are broken in South Africa.

The corruption that has drained resources from our country continues unabated and the only prison sentence that was upheld was for contempt of court. Not for corruption.

This imprisonment was followed by a systematic attack on the colourful fabric of our society. Joseph’s Technicolor Dream Coat is in shreds.

We all face these events which, like the impis burning in the valley, or the thugs raping and leaving a young girl on a railway line, scar us.

These recent events have brought previous trauma to the surface for me. I had never buried those disturbing events I had witnessed as a young doctor,  and then again as a young orthopaedic surgeon. I hoped  that theses  atrocities could be healed by the miracle of our inspiring path to democracy.

They were obviously not healed.

Now I know our democracy  is broken, and it is time to move on to heal.

A priest on Durban beach.

Posted on by basilBLOGinc · 7 Comments

Some Good News

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 during the second wave, a friend of mine suggested my next post should be about some good news.

So I thought of telling you about a touching visit by a medical student to her grandfather. He had been admitted with Covid pneumonia and is now recovering at home. I also thought I would write about how we have resumed planned surgeries, and how it feels different to when we resumed after the first wave. In the background I have been working on a document detailing how Covid-19 has affected me as an orthopaedic surgeon. I think the latter post would not be good news.

But there is good news for this post: I received my Johnson and Johnson vaccine on Friday. It was injected into my left arm by a community clinic nurse at Prince Mshiyeni Memorial Hospital, a provincial general hospital in the south of Durban, KwaZulu-Natal.

There is so much to say about the vaccinations for Covid-19. The scientific endeavour and ultimate production and licensing is nothing short of miraculous. The first time use of mRNA vaccines in the Pfizer and Moderna vials is science exploring the envelope . The Pfizer story is worth reading. It details a humble event. Albert Bourla is a Jew born in Thessaloniki, northern Greece, who steered Pfizer as CEO to be the first to release and use a vaccine for Covid-19. The story of who was the first person to be vaccinated in Greece is where much respect goes to Mr Bourla. Mrs Despina, 95 years old and also of Thessaloniki, is a Jewish-Greek holocaust survivor. She received her vaccine in early January 2021.

The Astra-Zeneca and Johnson & Johnson vaccines both use the older technology of inactive adenovirus with the DNA of the Corona virus incorporated. Unfortunately the Astra-Zeneca vaccine gave less protection for the new variants of the Corona virus, including the variant which caused South Africa to explode in the recent second wave. The adenovirus DNA vaccines are more robust than the modern mRNA vaccines, whose cold chain storage at -70 degrees Celsius is difficult in a developing country. South Africa had already taken delivery of one million doses of the Astra-Zeneca vaccine as the studies unfolded about it not being as protective as we had hoped for. It was an disheartening blow to the nation’s health care workersw who were relying on a vaccine to give them real protection.

Before the dust had settled on the unused Astra-Zeneca vials ( which were sold to other African countries) South Africa took delivery of 80 000 doses of the Johnson and Johnson Vaccine. This is a single dose vaccine as opposed to the others which rely on two doses, given at an interval of a few weeks to a few months. Over the last week the Department of Health co-ordinated the distribution of the Johnson and Johnson vaccine under the umbrella of a trial for health care workers called Sisonke. Sisonke in Zulu means “together”. It is a Phase 3 (b) clinical trial which is pragmatic and set in the real world. Perhaps a little more real in Africa.

The Department of Health distributed the 80 000 doses between 14 state hospitals and used these initial doses to protect frontline health care workers. Their EVDS (Electronic Vaccination Data System) website allowed me to register as a health care worker. My hospital then stratified staff into risk levels, and then I was able to register on the Sisonke website to be part of the trial. Besides entering personal details this also involved digitally signing an informed consent. After this I received a voucher number and a booking to get my vaccine on Friday 26 February 2021 at Prince Mshiyeni Memorial Hospital. It was not all as simple as it sounds. 

The logistics of the vaccine delivery process has been difficult globally. South Africa has discovered the limitations of the public-private health care system. Some provinces allocated appointment times. When I received my invitation it was open ended: from 8 am until 4 pm. My heart sank as I thought of my visit two years ago to the Department of Home Affairs to apply for renewal of my passport. For that I arrived at 5 am to be close to the front of the queue. It could not be that bad, so I arrived at Prince Mshiyeni Memorial Hospital, 10km away from Netcare Kingsway Hospital, just after 7 am. I was relieved and reassured to see our nursing manager at the entrance welcoming and directing me. I was number 184 in the queue. Two hours later I received my injection. Then I had to wait the obligatory 15 minutes to ensure I did not suffer an adverse reaction.

I walked out feeling empowered. I had survived a mild dose of Covid-19 at the end of last year,  and now with the vaccine I was protected. As data comes in I will in turn protect others. But until a significant proportion of our population is vaccinated I will continue applying the appropriate precautions. We should all continue to wear masks, wash hands and maintain social distance. In the hospital and my office the minimum requirement remains a mask, visor, plastic apron and gloves. 

We still have a long way to go with this pandemic, but the vaccine is the most significant step in our battle to gain control of this novel corona virus.

I am grateful to the scientists who developed the vaccine and the South African government for choosing to protect us. Special thanks to the manager of Netcare Kingsway Hospital, Mrs Demetriou for her efforts to get her staff vaccinated.  Health care workers have seen a different reality to the rest of the population.

Thanks to Sister Nompumelelo Molefe
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In Their Memory

I cannot find a title that encapsulates what has happened at my hospital without being alarmist. 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. The remaining doctors were stretched to cover the extra load. Our infrastructure was stretched. My measure of how we were coping was based on a few rough gauges: 

How many people were lined up outside the emergency department on oxygen? 

How many people were in the emergency department waiting for a bed at my or another hospital? 

A few weeks later I added another measure: how many people were waiting for ICU? 

We were stretched, no doubt. So I went to see how I could help. 

The nurses and doctors knew what they were doing, but it seemed chaotic just because of the sheer deluge of ill patients. We had a ward that was empty and accessible to those needing urgent care for Covid-19 symptoms. But we did not have the staff.  

As I walked through the ward I discovered the real measure of how overwhelmed my hospital was. There was a dead body in each of many rooms. Out of respect for the departed our staff were leaving the dead alone in a room. Their desire for those in the afterlife was to rest in peace with space. 

I am not at liberty to give the statistics as they are part of the information that the Department of Health disseminates. But I can tell you how it affected us. 

To make space for sick patients I seconded a porter and we started moving all the dead bodies into one room. A holding area. As we did this I met some of my operating theatre staff who were delivering a shrouded body to the new holding area. Beds in the ward were at a premium so it was more efficient to move the body to a holding area where the many professional undertakers have taken them away timeously. 

4180. 

That is the switchboard extension the ward staff call to get the RIP (Rest In Peace) team from theatre to prepare and move the body.  

The RIP team is made up of skilled theatre nurses, scrub sisters, recovery and anesthetic nurses. Once they get the call on extension 4180 they go to the ward where the patient has demised. They check the paperwork. They ask the family if they want the clothes left on or removed.  Then they wrap the body in two layers of plastic, each layer with three patient stickers identifying the body. Then they shroud the body with a white bedsheet. The remains are respectfully transferred to the holding area. 

We managed to staff and open the ward the next day and take patients from outside on oxygen and put them inside in a bed on oxygen.  

The odd thing is the number waiting outside remained the same for many days.  

It was sobering that number of dead arriving in the holding area was much more than we ever anticipated. 

The Holocaust Memorial in Berlin

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Superlatives

I could use superlatives to describe our nurses at Netcare Kingsway Hospital.

There are fancy words like  unprecedented, incredible, amazing, unbelievable, conscientious and self-sacrificing.

But I will not.

I will just tell you what they do:

Our nurses work twelve hour shifts. They arrive early and leave late. They wait in line to  sign in with a thumb print for work. Then they log in on their cell phones to be screened for Covid-19 symptoms and checked for fever. They queue up to sign in. Then they wait to be screened. 

From there they walk to their ward. There is not as much noise as before. It is quiet as they put their bag and food in their locker. Before they used to leave their phones in the locker. Now the phone is a vital tool to connect. Not to social media, but to hospital and doctor groups. Orders, stats and death notices fill the small screens.

They don PPE to start work and care for their patients. They wear a mask, visor, gown and gloves all day. It gets hot. Their throats become dry.  Tea and lunch breaks are short and sometimes missed because they are busy. They cannot sit with friends. The tea rooms only allow two nurses at a time. I see them walking to their cars to eat lunch. There is no life in how they spend the time which is meant to recharge their soul.

The wards are full. We can give each patient an oxygen mask or rebreather. Not everyone can get high flow oxygen because our oxygen supply system will fail. This even after we installed a huge tank and free flow piping that we hose down every hour to prevent the freezing of the pipes. I do not need to explain the cap we face if we need to escalate breathing support. There are a fixed number of ventilators with a waiting list.

As I write this, the words seem without aim.

I have chosen my words to reflect the staccato world of talking through masks and behind visors.

Yet somehow richer words appear. The intensity of the ICU’s is cloaked in an almost church like peace as these highly qualified nurses work around the clock to save lives. When I talk to them all I see are tired eyes above the mask line, yet there is a gentleness and concern that pervades their every action.

My theatre staff have lost all sense of stability. They have to work in wards, ICU, the emergency department, triage or screening. They also call the families to update them of the loved ones condition. My theatre staff have another duty: they care for those we have lost. They do this with great dignity.

This week I got some grass cutting helmet visors (I am holding two in the photo) for some of the theatre staff. We all know they are the most comfy and safe as well. They are bulky and ugly. One of the nurses put her visor on and walked as if on a catwalk. She was showing off her new visor as if it was a designer handbag.

As she walked she tilted her head to show the large blue helmet with clear plastic screen and said “fabulous!”.

Now that is a superlative I did not expect to hear.

Holding the grass cutting visors in a stainless steel hospital lift. See my phone in a plastic bag.
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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 holiday beach town where I work at Netcare Kingsway Hospital in Amanzimtoti, on the KwaZulu-Natal South Coast of South Africa.

I could see him reading the headlines. Then he shook his head and muttered something to his wife.

“News” was all I heard. It was accusatory, devoid of any connection to the surge in Covid-19 infections we are experiencing in this province. 

I was not in my surgical scrubs. I too wore shorts and a t-shirt, although not as smart as his. Instead of flip flops I wore my Crocs. Every day at the hospital I wear closed restaurant Crocs that I wash every day with my scrubs. It was good to be in my beach and bush Crocs.

“It’s true, you know” I said. “ I can take you to Kingsway Hospital down the road and show you the people waiting outside.” I knew they were there,  sucking on oxygen from  battered black cylinders. They would have been triaged by a team of nurses, vital signs recorded and placed on the oxygen as they waited for a cubicle in our emergency department. A colored sticker on their shirt or blouse would identify them: BLUE for family members, YELLOW for non-Covid medical problems ( the minority) and RED for COVID-19 patients.

“I don’t believe it. I don’t know anyone who has it. I don’t know anyone who has died from it. I know hundreds of teachers, and not one has it. But I do know people who have been murdered in the last year.” He was calm and spoke his truth.

His words hurt me.

I chose not to argue. He would not recognize me when he came to the back of the emergency department. All he would see is my eyes above the mask and behind the visor. I would be unable to help him. Not because he did not believe that Covid-19 was a real problem. I would not be able to help him because there would be twenty other patients waiting for a hospital bed. Maybe he would get one on the other side of the city, or even in another town. I would not wish ill on him. But he should see the eyes of those pleading for care and attention. He should see their eyes when the person lying on a stretcher next to them dies. He should see all the bodies waiting in the holding area.

They are waiting for the undertakers who can’t keep up with the burials.

The nurses at my hospital can’t keep up either. I cannot keep up with how many get sick with Covid.

One of the emergency doctors steeled himself before a shift. “I can’t do this anymore.”

He was tired of seeing patients and not having beds for them. He was tired of seeing people die. He was tired because two of his colleagues were sick with Covid and he had to carry the extra shifts.

Still he went out to face the death and destruction that this disease forces on us.

The man in front of me at the supermarket que would not believe any of this.

The amazing thing is he would still be treated at my hospital like anyone else if he needed help. He would be treated by nurses and doctors who just can’t keep up. 

He may end up with a RED sticker on his blue t-shirt…

Begrafnisse: Ons kan nie voorbly – Afrikaaans for Buritals: we cannot keep up
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A Note for Future Generations

Covid-19 is still with us. The South African curve is not flattening, and the number of new cases and deaths continues to rise.

I am seeing my first Covid-19 positive patient at Netcare Kingsway Hospital.  He is fortunately well. Unfortunately the surgery for his broken arm will be delayed for two weeks. I am not prepared to risk spreading the New Corona Virus in my theatre if it can be avoided. This said, if we needed to operate my team would do it safely.

I have consulted and seen other patients with Covid-19 before our hospital was closed and then reopened last month. But they had been admitted under other physicians, and were not strictly my responsibility. Although ownership may be a better word. We bear great responsibility as the doctors of these patients.

I was prompted to write this piece by Laurel Braitman, a professor and the Director of Writing and Storytelling at the Stanford School of Medicine at Stanford University. She hosted an emotional online writing workshop this weekend. The prompt was to write something for a  time capsule that would be opened by future generations. 

Back to my patient:

He was the last patient I saw on my ward round. 

First I see green patients, then yellow patients, and finally the red patients. Negative swabs, awaiting swab results and positive swabs respectively. 

Besides being red my patient is also black,  and I am white. Yes I notice that. Especially after all the other colors in my hospital. We are both born in the same country, but we come from different cultures.  We are the Rainbow Nation. Diverse and rich in color and ethnicity.

Our categorization of the disease in South Africa is also divided into race, as it has become all over the world. Black and white. I say this with great respect as America burns with human rights protest.

To save on PPE (personal protective equipment) I took him his breakfast. This meant a nurse would not have to don a special N95 mask, visor, gown, apron, hood, booties and gloves. No more pleasing hostess serving patient’s food on a tray with plates and cutlery in the hospital. Just a polystyrene container with food heated in the microwave. Delivered by an already tired doctor.

South Africa has always had constraints, and we all live in fear of not having enough PPE. So being able to serve the patient his food was my way of saving PPE for the tsunami we are expecting. It also allowed me to connect with him. I had to explain the delay in surgery. I reassured him that it was not going to jeopardize the ultimate result and clinical outcome of his injury. We also spoke about his work. His family. And Covid-19. We are all facing the same storm, yet each of us is in a different boat. 

Then my ward round was over. I spent thirty minutes with the nursing team going over the donning and doffing processes to be sure they were safe. Then I changed in the large change room the hospital has created for staff dealing with Covid-19 patients. I changed from hospital scrubs back into the new scrubs I wear to work every day. 

At home, after a  shower, I changed out of those scrubs into shorts and a t-shirt, and started my sanitized day.

Thank you to Laurel Braitman for the inspiration.

Durban beach baptism