National Strike

A national strike in South Africa involving all persons working in the public sector started on Friday. At the time we were at St.Mary's (which is partially private) and there were no changes as a result of the strike. The children in our family however do not have to go to school until the strike finishes.

Today we were supposed to be going to a secondary hospital (which sees patients with higher level care needs than St.Mary's), King Edward, however the gates were locked and apparently patients are not receiving care. It is very dangerous to show up to work at any public sector locations so our local coordinator moved us to a clinic, Kwadabeka which is near Pinetown to work today. Even though this is a public clinic, our coordinator Shola determined that it was safe. We are working on a day to day basis though and don't know if anything will change in terms of our program based on the negotiations that go on. The workers want a 12% raise and the government will not budge from their 6% offer.

That said, today was still a great, busy day. We each got to shadow a doctor and help them in consult with the patients. Most of the patients we saw had TB, Diabetes, high blood pressure or some sort of wound they let go untreated for weeks. In order to be seen in this clinic the patients get there at 3:00 or 4:00am and doctors finish seeing them by 3:00p.m.

All of my knowledge from last week was put to good use today as the doctors expected us to tell them what we would do if we were the doctors. One of our patients came in because of a mass on his chin, but he had several other skin problems on his face and ears. The doctor said he was bad at dermatology and asked me what I thought it was. I said, "Leprosy." Seriously a shot in the dark but I was right!! The doctor opened the patent's chart and sure enough he was on leprosy treatment. Thank goodness for my microbiology class. I knew so much about Leprosy the doctor was very impressed.

Anti-retrovirals are given out at this clinic and counseling for sexual assault victims and for patients on ARV's occurs here and we will be rotating through these areas throughout the week.

Regina is cooking dinner for me, my family and several of the other students to celebrate my birthday tonight. We are also going out Wednesday--I love extended birthdays!!

Thanks again for all of the birthday emails and phone calls. Keep your fingers crossed that we can go to clinic tomorrow.