bone tumour had kept the will to live and to help her daughter with the two small grandchildren as far as possible, since there was no man who did care for the family. I changed the bloody dressing on the short leg stump. The woman asked when she could be discharged and I spoke of two to three weeks. I passed in turned direction the theatre building and went to the intensive care unit next to the square. The patients of the high risk were in stable conditions what were recorded in the patients’ files. The nurses told that the injured brought by the military helicopter and got the right arm amputated were picked up by a military ambulance the previous night at around nine “as it was agreed what the men of the ambulance told”. I took note without mentioning the useless discussion with the officer in the theatre dressing room. I wished the nurses a quiet day and left the ward.
I made a turn to the post office where the box was empty, and to the mini-supermarket to buy a grey bread of the tastelessness, a spread sausage, a tin with orange marmalade and a pack of Stuyvesant. I arrived at the flat when the young colleague came from the other side and passed the place between the guesthouse and the flat. I put the bag with the goods bought in the kitchen and waited at the open verandah door for the young colleague. He entered the small sitting room and stood in front of the verandah table and looked at the written paper sheets and piled-up papers what had reached the height of some centimetres. The young colleague found the extent of the writings remarkable.
I brought two cups of coffee and put the cups on the small table between the out-seated armchairs. The colleague praised his time in Oshakati where he had learnt so much for the future and did regret for the neglected condition of the hospital which many people were depending on. I told that I came back from hospital now where I had removed lymph nodes from the armpit for histology on a young woman of a suspected breast malignancy. The young colleague called the superintendent a moneymaker. In this regard, I told the story of a dentist with a name of a Huguenot origin who had worked in the dental department of the hospital for quite some months. He was obsessed with the greed for quick money in the turbulent time that he charged the settings of crowns on his accounts in many cases also for clients when a crown was not needed, contradicted and not set. Some clients complained that the crowns had fallen out after a short while that the dentist had put in a new crown. Other clients were amazed at the high charges on their accounts and that they could not find a crown in their mirrored open mouths.
Medical aid questioned the high number of crowns set in the short period of time that it started an investigation by interviewing the clients including the look into their mouths and compared the dental status with the fee numbers and charges on the accounts. Some clients had a few teeth left and others had rotten dentures with a strong halitosis that there were no places for a crown as it were stated. The scheme came out: the crowns were put in place on the accounts but not into the mouths. Clients demanded the paid amounts back from the dentist. The demands of repayment became more and more that the dentist left with the money paid and his wife Oshakati overnight for South Africa.
The young colleague said in regard to people of the greed for quick money that the ‘rats’ take advantage of the war related upside downs to fill their bellies like pigs. “The behaviour of the forced-up greed for profit is criminal and does harm and discriminate the medical profession at large”, he added. I replied: “If one thing is wrong, the whole system is wrong. The morals have reached the low in this corner of the world. The system is corrupt and rotten and will sink like an old vessel when the new vessel is already in sight.” I expressed the sincere wish that the new vessel carries the booster for bringing back the morals up to standard, since the people deserve justice and a life in dignity.”
The young colleague who had his roots in the African soil like Dr van der Merwe, said: “It is a piece of truth of the low standard that money makes African people powerful and that money has the bigger saying than education. The materialism has gained ground also in Africa that the traditions and values of the old African cultures are drying up. Education and culture have slipped down to the low of illiteracy in terms of intellectual and spiritual degeneration.” The young colleague painted a black picture by saying that he cannot imagine that the blacks will be more educated than the whites that the morals will suffer from the shipwreck. The new people will grasp the levers of power. They have learnt from old people the handling of power for the advantage of the new elite. “I think the other skin colour will not make a big difference”, the young colleague added and took a neatly folded paper from the table and gave it to me with the words: “These are my words of farewell to you”.
I unfolded the paper and read :
To A Friend
I’m leaving you and need you so much
where I’m going to, it has been changed
my mind took a different view and opinion.
What I saw before is no longer meaningful
as what I have seen and experienced with people
who live with hunger and renunciation.
I have never suffered of these basics
when I passed school and university
I had to eat and had my own bed
and had the books to bring up my knowledge.
Here I have learnt that I knew little
about people suffering of these basics
because I have not considered them properly and honestly.
I have blinded myself by things of affluence and wealth
and did not think that this only belonged to the whites.
You taught me to be a doctor with a human face
to see the needs in the patients’ eyes and hearts
you taught me the humbleness which is needed
to understand what most important is in life.
Now I go back to a place where things are white
and I know that it is only a question of time
because skin colour should not make the difference
if it comes to honesty and human caring.
I will remember you as my teacher regarding the blacks
who guided me in the direction of the greater values
which are more important than I thought before.
May God bless you and the suffering people
who struggle so long for peace and freedom.
I took time in reading to perceive the spirit between and beyond the lines. I was deeply moved when I thanked the young colleague for his words and regretted that he left the hospital where doctors with a ‘human face’ where needed so much. “What will you do when you are back in South Africa?”, I asked him. The young colleague said he like to do a postgraduate in surgery, but there is the problem of money. “My parents have sacrificed much to enable me to study medicine. There are three other children younger, but not less talented who were looking for a respectable profession as well. I cannot lie on my parents’ pocket longer, but rather to earn the living by myself.” I told how I had earned my living as student by doing several part-time shops. “That is impossible in South Africa”, the young colleague said and added that he will work as a general practitioner where
