Mosvold Hospital

We are having a stupendous time here at the hospital, absolutely fantastic. Medically speaking: there is just so much exposure to diseases we don't see in Australia (tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS predominantly) and of those that we do, they often present at a much later stage (especially cancers). And we have loads of independence & autonomy. Each afternoon Aditi & I see our own patients in the Outpatient department, which is a fantastic learning experience. The senior doctors are just around the corner for tricky questions or difficult problems. We are even allowed to prescribe medication here!

The vast majority of the population speak only Zulu: we've picked up some limited key words, but mostly work with nurses or nursing students translating for us. Generally works very well, though you certainly learn to be economical & rather direct with your questions!

Each Tuesday & Thursday morning is theatre - the best! We have learnt how to give most anaesthetics & now give any spinal anaesthetics unaided & assist with general anaesthetics. Then during the operation we are invariably allowed to scrub up and act as the 1st assistant. Helping to cut, swab, dissect & suture closed. We've each assisted in amputations, caesarean sections, tubal ligations & performed many smaller procedures such as skin or lymph node biopsies (samples of tissue).

The hospital also services about a dozen perhiperal clinics, which the doctors rotate through. Aditi was lucky enough to fly in the little 4 seater Red Cross plane to the farthest one today!! Some magnificent photos from there.We both have also taken trips with home based care nurses, who visit patients in the community. And that is a real eye-opening experience! Visiting all these tiny shacks/shanty houses where the people live in destitute poverty, having to fetch water from the municipal well which may be kilometres away. Typically a homestead will be 2-3 round huts of sticks & mud/cow dung with thatched roofs ("rondavels") housing whichever grandparents are still alive, usually 5+ children and whichever of the parents that have not perished from AIDS. They keep chickens for eggs, cattle for milk (& funeral meals - almost every weekend) and goats for an occasional meat meal. The land is fairly poor & water scarce to no crops are grown, thus most of their meagre incomes are spent on purchasing maize meal from town (around 12 Rand/10kg I think). To put that in perspective, it costs R50 for a taxi or little bus to hospital.