Liz Gatley er udnævnt til årets landsbydoktor i en af Sydafrikas provinser og hun fortæller her om forholdene for sine patienter og glæden ved arbejdet trods alle – ofte umulige – odds.
JOHANNESBURG, 19 August 2012 (IRIN): In South Africa’s Zithulele Village, the local hospital services 130.000 people – but operates without enough health workers.
It is part of a countrywide healthcare worker shortage, but rural areas, where about 40 percent of the population lives, bear the brunt of this problem.
Doctors in rural areas like Zithulele do not only miss the conveniences of urban life; they also face difficult working conditions and under-resourced healthcare facilities.
Zithulele Hospital’s 28-year-old Liz Gatley, who was recently recognized as the Eastern Cape’s rural doctor of the year, spoke to IRIN about why she chose to stay when so many don’t.
“I came here as a student in 2005, and then I came back as a community service doctor in 2009. I never thought I would stay more than a year. Towards the end of that year, I thought I would stay on and help at least with the transition stage, so I stayed for an extra five months.
“Then one of the antiretroviral (ARV =livsforlængende behandling mod aids) counsellors – she has been here for ages and she is awesome (fantastisk) – phoned me and had this long conversation. She told me, ‘You need to stay, you can’t leave.’ Actually, that was one of the big reasons why I stayed. This is my third year”.
“It is a really cool place to work. Although there are enormous challenges, it is still small enough that you can actually have an influence, make a difference.
Et af de støste øjeblikke
“One of my best moments has to be a woman who had literally been put on every treatment we had – she was on tuberculosis treatment, she was on antibiotics, we checked her for meningitis (hjernehindebetændelse). She just got worse and worse. Eventually, I was counselling the family that she was probably going to die, that there was nothing else we could do.
“I saw her in the ARV clinic two months later. She had survived. She is at one of my clinics now and we see each other there.
“I am lucky that I was put in the ARV clinic and I just love it. I really do. That has been a huge area of growth in the hospital. We have managed to put a lot more patents on treatment [than neighbouring hospitals], and from this year, we have started ‘down-referring patients’ – essentially allowing our patients to collect their treatment at their [local] clinics.
“You can see how difficult it is for people to access healthcare (få behandling), and how difficult it is to get here. There are a few roads where [mini-buses] go, but a lot of patients walk through rivers; they arrive wet because they swam through a river. They have walked across the hills to access their treatment.
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http://www.irinnews.org/Report/96131/SOUTH-AFRICA-Liz-Gatley-You-can-actually-have-an-influence-make-a-difference
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