Nursing legend has no time for shut-eye
AT THE age of 75, neurosurgical nurse and counselling psychologist Lillian Cingo thinks sleep is a luxury.
She gasped in shock at the idea of resting in her old age.
“There shall be no slumber in South Africa,” she said. “My God, how can you sleep?”
Cingo, who has 45 years’ working experience, 22 of them in psychology, said South Africa could rest on its laurels only when every citizen had better health, education and housing.
She is one of the icons featured in photographer Adrian Steirn’s 21 Icons project to celebrate inspiring South Africans.
Cingo has asked Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi to give her a call if he needs help.
She praised him for trying to bring experienced nurses out of retirement to help younger professionals with things that they could not learn from textbooks.
“To him I would like to say: ‘You are doing a fantastic job. If at any time you need some help, we are there for you.’
“He is a fantastic young man that has done so many improvements already.
“There are things that need to be improved, and they can only get better. He can’t do it alone. We are with him,” she said.
Cingo started her career at Baragwanath Hospital in the 1960s when a neurosurgeon spotted her skills and encouraged her to go to the UK for further training because, as a black woman, she would not get that education locally.
In a decade she was twice nominated as Nurse of the Year in London, and in 1975 she was presented to Queen Elizabeth as the best neurosurgical nurse.
She was invited to start a regional neurosurgical unit at the Royal Free Hospital in London, which she managed for the next 15 years.
She returned to South Africa only in 1995 after an invitation to help manage Transnet’s Phelophepa (good, clean health) train, which travelled to remote corners of South Africa to bring healthcare to rural people. There are now two trains. Although she is no longer involved in the project, she has called for Phelophepa rough-terrain vehicles to drive to rural areas that the trains cannot reach.
She is concerned about South Africa’s mental health. “We need to heal holistically,” she said. She wants nurses to learn psychology because healing is important for more than just the body.
Steirn photographed her at Noah’s Ark in Kliptown, Soweto, using a simple black backdrop.
“I wanted to take a portrait of Lillian that reflected her life of service, that spoke about nursing and how incredible it is what people like her do,” Steirn said.
The portrait shows Cingo in an old-fashioned nurse’s uniform and speaks of a strong woman who has always honoured her profession through her actions and deeds.
Steirn said the portrait conveyed the strength required to take on difficult situations.
The original, signed portrait will be auctioned at the end of the series and the proceeds donated to the Phelophepa I and II trains.
SABC3 will flight a behindthe-scenes film of the photo shoot at 6.57 tonight. In it, Cingo tells Steirn of her passion for securing the health of especially the poverty-stricken inhabitants of rural areas.
Cingo’s portrait is published in the R16 South African edition of the Sunday Times today.