My missions trip last year to Haiti and the DR gave me a taste of what nursing and medical care is like in developing countries. Now, South Africa is allowing me to experience nursing in yet another country that is completely different from the US. I hope that I'll be able to use all that I'm learning and seeing in these different cultures to be a better, more culturally-aware nurse in the future.
We've been doing clinicals two days a week for a month now here in South Africa, and so we've logged 65.5 hours so far. We need a total of 78 hours for our time here, so were almost done! (And that means that I have A LOT of catching up to do on my blog!) The 6 of us nursing students rotate between 4 different clinical sites, with 1 to 3 students at each site at a time. The sites vary greatly in their size, purpose, and function, but they're all very interesting and great places to learn. Right now I'm going to tell you about the first site that I went to, Mason's Clinic.
Mason's Clinic is located east of AE in the rural hills above Haniville. The area is extremely poor, and there are tons of crude shacks built hastily on the hills.
The streets in the area have no street signs or markers, so you have to just memorize the way to get there based on landmarks. There are a lot of goats and cows wandering around in the area outside the clinic since it's in such a rural neighborhood.
I spent two days at Mason's with 2 other students, Brianna and Lauren. The first day I was with Sister Mhlongo (the nurses are called "sisters" in South Africa, which is based off the British nursing system). The patients that came to her had general, acute illnesses or problems. The patient would come in and sit down in a chair, and Sister Mhlongo would talk to him or her in isiZulu to find out what the problem was. She would then translate for me and explain to me what we could do for the patient. Next, she would choose the appropriate medication to give the patient and let me fill out the label and dosage. She also let me explain to the patient how to take the meds, since most of them spoke a little English. Then that patient would leave and the next one would walk in right away.
Patients don't have appointments at these clinics. They just show up early in the morning and wait in line half of the day until the nurse can see them. They usually spend at least 4 or 5 hours just waiting. I've had a really hard time understanding this system since it seems so unfair to the patients. The clinics in Haiti were exactly the same way, and it didn't seem fair to me then either.
In the afternoon, I sat in with Sister Carson and Brianna. They were simply handing out HIV meds to the patients or relatives of patients that came to collect them. This happens every Thursday. We then got picked up at 3pm.
On my second day at Mason's, I visited several different areas of the clinic. It's a really small facility made up of an old house and a modular building. (The modular is in the background of this picture of some kids at the clinic.)
There are 3 main sections to the clinic: acute illnesses (where I was the first day), HIV, and TB/chronic illnesses. On Tuesdays, there is also an antenatal room where pregnant women can go for check-ups.
I started out in the HIV section with Sister Gasa. We did basically the same thing as I did with Sister Mhlongo- assess the patients and find out what their chief complaint is, then give them meds to fix it. Nurses in clinics here are allowed to function like doctors. They can diagnose and prescribe meds, whereas in the US, only Nurse Practitioners can do this.
After tea time, I joined Sister Carson, my favorite nurse at Mason's. She is a wonderful teacher and loves to give us hands-on experience. (This is Sister Carson with another student, Chelsea.)
Notice the shoulder epaulets that Sister Carson is wearing. These indicate that she is a nurse. RNs wear maroon ones, the equivalent of LVNs wear white ones, and nurse aids don't wear any at all. The different bars indicate what specialty training she has received. Black is general nursing, green is community, and yellow is maternity. You'll also notice that she's not wearing scrubs (she usually wears a skirt, not pants). Nurses just wear a collared white shirt and a blue skirt or pants. That's their uniform.
Sister Carson was doing the antenatal section that day. I love anything to do with babies and maternity, so I wanted to see what she was doing. She let us feel for the baby inside the womb, measure the size of the patient's belly, and listen to the baby's heartbeat with a simple plastic cone. It was very fun!
The afternoon was very slow because there weren't many patients left to be seen. Most of the nurses and counselors were just sitting around chatting or braiding each other's hair, so I learned how to braid cornrows by watching them! We finally got picked up at 3, an hour earlier than we were supposed to leave.
I really enjoyed Mason's Clinic. It reminded me so much of the clinics in Haiti and the DR that I felt homesick for those places and the rest of my missions team. Working at Mason's also made me realize that I need to work a lot harder at learning to speak isiZulu!
Phrase of the Day: "Igama lami uBethany" (ee-gah-ma la-mee ooh-[your name]) means "My name is Bethany"
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