Angry that man made to suffer

How do you (as a “whitey”) help your loyal employee to get the medical help he so desperately needs?

My gardener arrived back at work in January weak and with a terrible chest problem.

I took him to my GP, who did a chest X-ray and he wanted to book him into hospital immediately – it was that bad.

He said there was something destroying his lungs. He couldn’t give a firm diagnosis – there were two possibilities.

And so started many phone calls.

My gardener needed to get into Livingstone Hospital at the pulmonary unit, but was told he needed to be referred from Dora Nginza Hospital – but Dora Nginza Hospital staff said he had to be referred by the closest clinic to his home!

He went to a clinic (won’t mention which one) and when he arrived with his referral letter, the staff were rude to him and mocked him, asking him what he was doing there with a letter from a “special doctor”?

He said to me: “That letter angered them and was the reason they made me wait the whole day and only saw to me at the end. I was the last one to leave.”

They gave him treatment and said he must come back after three weeks to see if it worked. That medicine has not made a difference at all.

He tried working for the day, but I sent him home for another week until his next appointment with the clinic.

By this stage I am furious at this man’s suffering.

I asked him if I could accompany him to this next appointment, but he asked me please not to.

He said if staff saw a white person coming with him there “will be lots of fighting”.

Dear health department, you are placing the lives of these people who cannot afford a medical aid into the hands of the clinics, the clinics who discriminate and punish someone for getting “white” help.

I cannot get this man into a hospital because the staff at these clinics hold all the power and are the gatekeepers.

It is disgusting.

This is not my only experience with the clinics since this year started.

This month I also had to take my domestic worker’s daughter to the same GP.

The clinic had told her she might have TB, gave her antibiotics and told her to come back in two weeks.

In the waiting for the two weeks to pass she nearly died – she had pneumonia!

My GP picked that up and could give her the correct

antibiotics. She was well enough within a week to go back to university.

What’s the point of the government throwing money at healthcare when the staff’s attitudes remain the same?

If you work at such a clinic and you love your work, may God bless you far beyond those who have no conscience.