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Medical And Health Care
Differences In The Land Of Hope By Betty Tope
One of the prime concerns a preacher’s family faces when contemplating doing foreign work has to
do with medical care. The unknowns of moving to a foreign country with it’s strange foods and differing cultures are
daunting enough without adding in the medical equation. Some of the concerns are: - Will
I find a doctor who speaks English, or a brand of English I can understand?
- Will his/her treatments be similar to the
kind of treatment I am used to?
- Will the medical facilities be up to date?
- Will the hospitals be hygienic?
We were fortunate
in all our years of living in South Africa
to have had excellent doctors and, consequently, what I consider excellent medical care. Contrary to my first fears when I
went to see an Afrikaans-speaking doctor, his English was perfect. Dr. Johannes made house calls and became a trusted friend.
He delivered two of our babies, removed my appendix and an ovarian cyst, performed Becky’s tonsillectomy, and stood
by us through many childhood diseases and the loss of our beloved Karen. I figure we have moved about 50 times during our
married life so we have had occasion to consult many physicians in many localities. In our experience, Dr. Johannes was one
of the best diagnosticians of all.
Having
borne seven children and suffered many surgeries, I am well acquainted with hospitals, too. American hospitals are like hotels
with your own TV, telephone and often a private room. South African hospitals on the other hand were more bare boned with
no TV, perhaps a communal phone in the hallway and often a many-bedded ward. Though, when Gene had some emergency surgery
in Durban on one occasion, he was given a
private room with a sea view. I think he was in too much pain to enjoy the view, but we visitors did! During my confinements
I usually enjoyed getting to know the other patients and listening to them talk among themselves and to the staff in Afrikaans
and Zulu. It always fascinated me the way South Africans could switch back and forth between English and Afrikaans when speaking.
I had one ward mate who had grown up on a farm with Zulu playmates and she spoke fluent Zulu as well.
American hospitals send
around a menu so the patient can circle his/her choices for the following day’s meals. South African hospitals offered
no such luxuries, but I had few complaints about the food. I loved the soups, the porridges, and the tea times. We were woken
up with early morning tea and biscuits (cookies), served tea following the main meals, then morning and afternoon tea and
biscuits and then again before bedtime. The nursing staff was always attentive and compassionate. I soon learned the frills
were not nearly as important as quality care.
During our years in the Kloof/Gillits/Cowies Hill section of Natal, our family doctor was Dr. Savage, who was Jewish and rather elderly. He had an English nurse
who had a running battle with him over his equipment. Once when I was in for an EKG the nurse was muttering about the need
for a new machine. I remarked that maybe he didn’t want to learn how to operate new equipment at his age. Her reply
was, “Hmpf. I’m older than he is.” I was always amused when Dr. Savage took my blood pressure. He would
take it with one piece of equipment, then shake it and take it again. Then switch arms and switch cuffs. He usually ended
up taking it three times before he was satisfied. During the many years we consulted him, Dr. Savage never changed the appearance
of his waiting rooms one iota. The chairs became aged, the linoleum worn, the paint faded. But the waiting room was always
full. (I remember there was a basket of yarn in there so the women could knit squares for blankets while they were waiting.)
His patients were very loyal. In fact our son-in-law’s mother and step-father continued to consult him up until a couple
of days before Dr. Savage died.
Our son Scott came down with bronchial pneumonia when he was just three months old and this left him prone to allergies,
wheezing and croup. He outgrew the wheezing and croup by the time he was 13, but the allergies still plagued him. When he
was about 14 years old, Dr. Savage tested him for allergies and then had a special serum made up for him in Pretoria. For a while we took Scott to him five days a week for injections
of that serum and gradually tapered off until he didn’t need any more. We will always be indebted to Dr. Savage for
that.
While
living in Gillits we lived in a house with a sunken living room accessed by three or four flagstone steps. This house had
a bar tucked in the corner by the stairs. It was not unusual for homes to have bars in them for entertaining. Though we didn’t
drink, I found the counter tops to be great work places for collating printed material, binding booklets, etc., and the storage
underneath worked as a great place to store games and puzzles. As I was dusting off the counter top one morning while standing
on the stairs, I turned around and stepped off and fell and chipped my ankle bone. I guess I just forgot where I was standing.
While still in shock I was able to walk back upstairs to the kitchen and when Gene came home he took me to see Dr. Savage.
Of course, by then I could not put my weight on that foot, so I hopped out to the car and then hopped in to Dr. Savage’s
rooms. He sent me to the lab for X-rays, which was in another part of Pinetown and up a flight of stairs. More hopping. They
could only take me a couple of hours later, so Gene brought me home to wait in my bedroom. During the interval I
hopped into the bathroom. Coming out, I felt like I couldn’t do any more hopping, so I decided to crawl back to the
bed. Imagine my surprise to look up from the floor and find a houseful of people. These were estate agents who had come to
look at the house prior to our putting it on the market. Needless to say, I felt rather foolish greeting them from the floor,
but I was totally embarrassed when I found out Gene had told them I was “sick.” I could just imagine what kind
of sickness they thought I was suffering from! That afternoon I did have the X-rays and then went back to see Dr. Savage, who put my leg
in a cast. All this happened just a few days before we were scheduled to take a vacation trip to Kruger Park in the northeast section of the country. I gamely helped pack up for the trip. Being very security conscious, we gathered
all the valuables and put them in the bedroom and locked the iron security gate that separated the bedroom area from the rest
of the house. We were all in the car when someone remembered something they forgot. When Gene went back to get the item, he
discovered we had left the back door open in our haste to depart. So much for security. What a laugh that gave us!
Our first night’s stop was at a little town called Ermelo. We stayed at a Holiday Inn, which for some reason
could not supply any hot water that day. By then my leg was hurting so much I couldn’t even go down to supper. I was
convinced something was terribly wrong. The next day we made it to a little Afrikaans farming town just outside Kruger Park. By that time I had persuaded Gene to take me to a doctor. We found a little doctor’s surgery
just off the main road, but he had gone home for lunch. The receptionist very kindly phoned him at home and he came back early
to see this “American lady.” I was taken to a small room at the back (I think this was a home
that had been converted to a physician’s suite) and told to hop up on the examining table. While I was waiting for
the doctor, I was able to look around the room and view all the Old Dutch Remedies that were stored there. These usually were
very cheap and much in demand by the poorer people. When we first came to Johannesburg, I was having trouble with nosebleeds and a dear sister gave me an Old Dutch Remedy called Staal
Druppels, guaranteed to cure the nose bleed. They burned so much I was in agony, but they did cauterize the nasal passages
and stopped the nose bleed! Needless to say, I was very wary of taking anything called an Old Dutch Remedy for ever after!
So I was a little apprehensive to see such a vast assortment of these remedies. Meanwhile an African woman had come in with
a sick baby and I could hear the poor thing crying. The nurse came back and yanked the rubber sheet from under me, explaining
that she needed it for the baby. I just shook my head. The doctor eventually came in with this buzz saw and proceeded to cut open
the cast. I was terrified he was going to cut my leg. But his self-confidence was justified and he had the cast off in no
time and my leg was still intact. Much to my chagrin, the leg was fine and the cast was not the cause of the pain. So now
I was instructed to hop down off the table, hop down the step into the back yard and over to a stool the nurse had placed
under a huge tree. She brought a basin of water, the plaster of Paris, etc. for the doctor to put on a new cast. All the while
I was perched on this stool and the doctor was casting my leg, there was an audience of Africans watching the whole procedure.
I’m sure they found the process very entertaining and I could only laugh to myself at the ludicrousness of it all. I
don’t know if the cleaning lady was off sick or what, but either the doctor or the nurse or both of them didn’t
want that mess inside.
I had no further problem with my leg healing, other than the normal discomforts and inconveniences of a broken leg.
When I got back to Dr. Savage and reported my experiences, we both had a good laugh. When we lived in Zululand in the relatively small town of Richards Bay, it became necessary for me to have varicose vein surgery. The most recommended surgeon in the area worked out of
the hospital in the neighboring town of Empangeni. He was the picture of the quintessential bush doctor. He had long white hair and wore colorful Hawaiian type shirts.
He was a sight as he came striding down the halls of the hospital, white hair flying, shirt tails flapping. The day of the
surgery I was put on a Gurney and left in a waiting area next to a very frightened young girl of about five years old. Finally,
my turn came and I was wheeled down the corridor and then suddenly halted. I was instructed to hop down off the Gurney and
walk into the room where the surgeon was waiting, which I obediently did in my bare feet, trying to hold the hospital gown
closed. Then I was instructed to step up on a stool, where the surgeon (I believe his name was Henderson) proceeded to mark my legs where the incisions were to be made. I
can only suppose this was done to save his back! After this I padded back out to the Gurney and was taken to the operating
theater laughing internally all the while.
Being in the subtropics, several of my incisions went septic and I was
on an antibiotic for several months before they cleared up. Then I suffered a bout of respiratory infection and was put on
another antibiotic. This was too much for my immune system and it appeared I just never got over that episode of flu. At the
time our family doctor was a young Afrikaans woman 29 years old - Dr. Karin Uys. She was a very compassionate, caring doctor
and we were sorry when she and her husband emigrated to Canada. Karin knew immediately what my problem was, but it was necessary to first make the rounds of specialists to rule
out other possibilities. After a few months, it was official . . . I had developed Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Acute Myofacial
Pain Syndrome and Fibromyalgia. The pain was all-encompassing. The fatigue so severe I could not even hold a book to read.
I was so fortunate to get an early diagnosis, especially when I have since learned of many Fibro sufferers who have gone for
years from doctor to doctor before getting a diagnosis.
After Dr. Uys left the country I found Dr. Lance Giles, a homeopath
with offices in Empangeni and Richards Bay. Over several months Dr. Giles was able to put my pain
and fatigue in remission. I was able to get off all pain and sleep medication. He remains a friend to this day. Unfortunately,
when we moved to Virginia I overdid things
and reactivated the Fibro and have not found anyone in the U. S. with his knowledge and skill.
When we finally moved back to the States at the end of the year
2000, I arrived at our daughter’s home in Ohio very ill. It took a couple of days before I realized I was suffering from Tick Bite Fever. After all those years of
living in South Africa, camping in the game parks, traipsing through the veldt, etc., and never succumbing to this common
malady, I managed to get it just before leaving the country. Susan took us to a local doctor who was very alarmed when I told
her my suspicion. She made a couple of phone calls and finally decided she couldn’t deal with this illness and sent
me to the emergency room at the Akron General
Hospital. After several doctors and interns
had come to have a look-see, they finally found an infectious disease specialist who had heard of the African variety of Tick
Bite Fever and was able to prescribe the correct medication. They asked my permission and took pictures of my back, where
the bite was, for their medical books. That was definitely not the way I imagined starring in pictures!
So dear friend, put your fears aside. Other cultures may be different,
sometimes even bizarre, but we can learn much from them if we keep an open mind, a sense of humor, and trust in our heavenly
Father.
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We hope to expand Sojourning in Distant Lands to include other areas of the world. Please
help us by sending the names of those you know who are preaching in places other than the United States. Thanks. cg
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Blue
Blue is a color
Not often seen In the animal world Full of browns and green
But I know a country
Where creatures abound With blue-colored bottoms And blue-colored crowns
Where the blue-bottomed monkeys
Play in the trees While the blue-headed lizard Keeps one eye on me!
Betty
Tope

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| Photo courtesy of Wikipedia |
Southern
Rock Agama South Africa
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2007
- God's Providential Care and Peanuts by J. Beckley
- Doing the Lord's Work in Zimbabwe by L. Maydell
- Uncle Basil Cass A Soldier of Christ, Gone Home by C. Buchanan
- A Child of the Harvest Field by E. Baize
- Returning
Home - Reverse Culture Shock by J. Beckley
- Preparation: "Go"
Said the Savior by B. Tope
- Joy and Sorrow in the Land of
Hope by B. Tope
- Daily Reality in the Land of Hope B. Tope
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2008
- Teaching with Delight in the Land of Hope by Betty Tope
- The Multi-Cultural Cuisine Of South Africa by Betty Tope
- About the violence in Zimbabwe - Christians need prayers
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| Photo taken by Betty Tope |
The Drakensberg Mountains ~ called "Dragon's
Mountain" in Afrikaans ~ are the highest mountains in Southern Africa.

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| Photo taken by Betty Tope |
South African Garden Richards
Bay

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From the mail: Where I attend church at Fayette church of Christ,
Lexington, KY has sent funds to Zimbabwe, I am not sure how much or often, I believe we sent it through Foy Wallace. I am
glad to know who is preaching there and we do remember you in our prayers at church and in private. Thank God for you and
all ministers in foreign countries. ~ Patricia Greer
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