Decades of serving on front line
First matron of colour at Groote Schuur
WHEN Sister Dorothy Elaine Lewis saw a job advert in the Cape Times (The Star’s sister publication) on March 10, 1970, little did she know it would open a window for generations of her family to follow in her footsteps.
Lewis, now 87, had responded to an advert for a nursing post and said she was hired on the spot. She went on to become Groote Schuur Hospital’s first matron of colour and also started the hospital crèche.
“I started working at a sanatorium, a place for TB patients, during a time when TB was rife. I then went on holiday and when I came back from holiday I decided to give notice. I called my husband and asked him to get me a newspaper, he was very puzzled but he bought me a Cape Times and I saw the advert and called Groote Schuur that morning. I was appointed straight away.”
Lewis said she believes she was hired as the hospital thought she was white because she lived in Observatory, adding that they were surprised when she arrived and was not white.
“But by then they had already hired me – although they changed the ward I would serve in. Then after three years I was promoted and became the first coloured matron at Groote Schuur. I became matron after shadowing the matron there.”
She said one of her proudest achievements was helping start the Oakstreet School in the late 1970s.
“Originally, there was a crèche for the children of white employees, but I recommended that we create a crèche for all children. I was good friends with the chief engineer and he helped with the making of the toys and design.”
Lewis retired in 1995 after decades of dedicating her life to others, saying she was fond of people, especially the sick who needed the most nurturing.
Lewis’s son and daughter-in-law work at the hospital and her grandchildren attended the hospital crèche.
“Nursing is never going to be the same. Back then we didn’t rush things, for example when we received students we taught them to be gracious to the patients and visitors and so on. There was a bigger emphasis on the human factor back then.
She said nurses working during the Covid-19 pandemic were faced with an enormous task which they were handling well.