Bringing health care to the isolated
Practitioners are exchanging their services for a stay at a luxurious game lodge, writes Karishma Dipa
THE remote areas of Limpopo and Mpumalanga might be rich in natural beauty with mountainous and scenic views, but for millions of its residents there is a thin line between life and death.
Much of the rural regions of these provinces don’t have the most basic medical services and the country’s top medical practitioners and specialists are often located in big cities, leaving less densely occupied provinces with little to no health care assistance.
But the Tshemba Foundation has aptly used the serenity of these remote and peaceful locations to persuade international and local health practitioners from all disciplines of medicine to use their expertise on those who are in dire need of medical attention.
The local medical volunteering initiative recruits doctors and specialists from countries including Canada, US, UK, Australia, New Zealand, The Netherlands, Germany and South America in different phases of their careers who are also joined by their peers from around South Africa.
“Volunteers come from most parts of the world and we are happy to accept anyone who applies as long as the Health Professions Council of SA (HPCSA) will register them,” the foundation’s chief executive Barbara Mcgorian told the Saturday Star this week.
“We have volunteers spanning all ages and we have qualified medical professionals just wanting to give back before starting a career, or those at the height of their careers wanting to find their calling and many reaching retirement.”
While the international and local medical workers are not paid for their time spent with the foundation, they get to stay at a luxurious five-star game lodge in Mpumalanga for free.
“The medical practitioners are not paid as the work is purely voluntary,” Mcgorian explained. “We offer free accommodation in our beautifully appointed lodge but travel and catering are for their account.”
Located in close proximity to the Klein Drakensberg Mountains and a watering hole close by that draws the animals of Moditlo Private Game Reserve, the medical visitors can enjoy a scenic hideaway and true bushveld refuge surrounded by an array of game, bird species and the great outdoors during their down time.
While the main objective of this initiative is to tend to the medical needs of those in need in South Africa’s remote provinces, the project is also seen as a way for medical workers to “fall in love with the professional all over again”.
The foundation’s website sells this unique experience as a “jobbymoon”.
“Rather than finishing one job on Friday and starting the next on Monday, jobbymoons give people the opportunity to take some time out, to destress and get your worklife balance right,” a section of the website read.
“In the era of all-things digital – when we barely allow ourselves one moment’s respite from the appointments, emails, Whatsapps and tweets – we are desperate for some proper time out.
“Even more so with medical professionals, working with trauma, often in gruelling and obstacle-ridden conditions, can be emotionally and physically exhausting.”
Mcgorian added that the lodge experience, which accommodates up to 18 medical practitioners at a time, is a perfect doctor’s refuge.
“Our pay-off line is ‘changing lives including your own’ and that is exactly what happens. Many come back and recommend the incredibly rewarding experience to their colleagues and friends,” she said.
The foundation’s chief executive said these health-care workers, who offer a range of medical services such as cancer screenings, general surgery, dermatology, cardiology, gastroenterology, audiology, psychiatry and patient care, stay at the lodge and offer their expertise to the surrounding communities for different periods of time.
“They spend from a weekend to a year. It all depends on what they do.”
“An ophthalmologist can achieve many high volume cataracts over one weekend, or a surgeon can perform many operations in a few days, but a general practitioner (GP) or obstetrician-gynecologist would be far more useful over a period of time than a short stay.”
The Tshemba Foundation, whose volunteer centre was built in 2014 and welcomed their first volunteer three years later, is privately funded by an expatriate who, according to
Mcgorian, wanted “to give back to the land of his birth”.
The former South African and the foundation identified Limpopo and Mpumalanga as some of the provinces which could immensely benefit from their work.
“They are no doubt sorely lacking in terms of resources and equipment and so the interventions from the foundation are vitally important.”
While they offer a wide range of medical service, Mcgorian believes that its cataract clinic, which is located in a refurbished theatre in the Tintswalo government district hospital, is especially beneficial to these communities in need.
“We are able to give the gift of sight to a population of people in which so many are completely blind.”
She explained that they have realised that many youngsters who have cataracts, a dense, cloudy area that forms in the lens of the eye, adversely affects their ability to learn and even drop out of school.
“Some of the most memorable and fulfilling aspects for this initiative have been bringing sight to those who have been blind for so long.”
The foundation also built a women’s clinic which screens women for cervical, abdominal and breast cancer.
“One of our surgeons also performed the first tonsillectomy in the hospital,” said Mcgorian.
She added that much of their focus has also been on delivering and saving premature babies.
“Patients are happy to wait in long queues, and are incredibly grateful when seen by a doctor.”
While the global health crisis inflicted by the novel coronavirus has somewhat halted their operations as they had to temporarily suspend the recruitment of volunteers from all medical disciplines from across the globe since March, the foundation was still able to acquire the services of local doctors.
“We were still able to carry on as South African doctors were able to come and as soon as the world is ready to allow international travel again, we will welcome our overseas volunteers,” Mcgorian explained.
While providing medical services during the country’s lockdown was challenging, the foundation’s chief executive said one of their volunteers managed to refurbish a disused section at a hospital and transform it into a Covid-19 isolation ward.
She added that they were fortunate that much of Mpumalanga and Limpopo were low risk coronavirus areas in comparison to the likes of Gauteng, the Western Cape and Kwazulu-natal.
“We were able to continue as long as we followed all Covid-19 protocols and initially we only took doctors from other low risk areas so it was never really a major problem.”
While they wait for the effects of the pandemic to subside, Mcgorian and the Tshemba Foundation are intent on providing medical services to rural communities.
“The gratitude from the patients when they get better is the most rewarding thing of all.”