Helmut Lauschke - For Justice, Understanding and Humanity

He announced what was already known that at the end of the month what was in five days, the colleagues from the army would leave the hospital. He thanked these doctors for their commitment which he called exemplary, and added that he didn’t know how the work without them could have been handled by the few remaining doctors. The young army doctors made their big eyes when the superintendent put it in the following words: “The hospital had depended on the military doctors. You have rendered a great service by your work on the patients for what I like to thank you in the name of the hospital administration and the rest of the colleagues.” ‘If that doesn’t go wrong’, I thought of the hypocritical manner how the superintendent did express his thanks and had in mind the disrespectful behaviour of the paediatrician on the day before when he introduced the new specialist surgeon to me. It was this negative-remarkable event when I realized that the future had already started. I saw in my imagination the rising tips of the black masts of the new vessel with the black crew which would take over soon the power in this country.

There was silence in the room after the sentence of thanks had been addressed by the superintendent. The black paediatrician had anger on his face whose eyes focused something at the ceiling. The other faces on the window side looked seriously without any motion. The young colleague and talented story writer took the word on behalf of his other young colleagues in uniform. He thanked for the opportunity that they could work at Oshakati hospital where they have learnt so much in the recent months. He himself has collected experiences that were extensive to an extent he couldn’t think of before. When the young colleague mentioned my name to thank for all my guidance and support in teaching him the medical basics and some operative techniques, it has opened him the eyes. The paediatrician looked critically at me as I did not deserve these words of thanks in this wonderful humane way. I took the averse eye expression relaxed, but remembered the furious looks of the ‘lieutenant of the devil’ who was the arrogant, selfish and scheming Dr Hutman. However, I took the paediatrician’s response as a token regarding the future when the new power vessel with the black crew has docked and the power change gets in full swing from white to black. It was the sincere gesture of a friend when Dr Nestor nudged gently my arm and whispered ‘excellent’.

The superintendent made a note on a paper and folded and stuffed it to the other papers in his left pocket of the linen jacket and started talking about the precarious security situation. The wording of the topic was worn and blunt, since it was the same what he had used the previous weeks. He mentioned some new thefts which have occurred in the main kitchen where big amounts of meat were taken from the freezer and barrels with diesel fuel for the power generator were taken from the generator hall, and the engine and four new tyres were stolen from the carport. He reiterated the disappointment of the acting shirt-sleeved medical director in respect of the recent criminal activities. He expressed his concern that crime would continue as long as the culprits were not identified and punished. “These activities affect severely the hospital. What can the patients eat, how can the generator run in cases of the power cuts and how can the ambulance get ready to function, if meat, fuel, engine and tyres are missing?”, the superintendent questioned.

I observed the paediatrician who seemed to be entertained, while his eyes walked along the ceiling. I put the question up what koevoet is doing in their night raids when they search for suspected Swapo-fighters on the premises and in the wards. They could prevent the criminal activities and protect the hospital properties. The pale looking superintendent moved his eyes, but did not say one word. The pharmacist said that things cannot simply disappear, if the vehicles were screened at the hospital gate. I picked up this point and asked, if there were vehicles which bypass the control by the gatekeeper that they pass unscreened the gate. There was silence, because everybody including the superintendent understood that it got referred to koevoet with their Casspirs. The superintendent kept his big eyes on me, while I suggested that the superintendent should think about the meaning of the nightly raids of koevoet on the hospital premises. After this point, the colleagues on duty reported on their activities and the patients who were admitted. The pharmacist woman mentioned the drugs that were not on stock, but ordered since two weeks. With this, the morning meeting had ended and the participants left the superintendent’s office with serious and vacant faces.

I was waiting for the young colleague outside the secretary’s office where I asked myself when this meeting would become meaningful. We went together to the theatre building. On the way I thanked the colleague for his kind words. The young colleague said that he had made it short to avoid wrong reactions that could be based on jealousy, though he did like to say so much more. We changed the clothes in the dressing room and entered the small tea room. Dr Tabani sat already there dwelling in his thoughts and reflections. Dr Lizette arrived. She took a seat with a cup of tea and expressed her disappointment about the poor quality of the meeting where the superintendent made big talks, but without any practical solution. Dr Tabani smiled and said that he had attended some meetings in the beginning, but when he has realized that there were only empty talks, he did not attend this nonsense any longer, since he did not like this kind of delusion and disrespect. Dr Lizette laughed and agreed and said that it is a cheek to speak always the same without anything done. Dr Tabani replied with seriousness that politics does not belong into a hospital. The young colleague kept quiet, because he felt himself as part of this politics, though he had put his uniform even temporarily on the rack in the dressing room.

Tabani sat in the tea room waiting for the anaesthetic doctor, while I and the young colleague and Lizette went to theatre 2 to fix the neck fracture on the thigh bone [ femur ] on the man referred from the Finnish-Lutheran mission hospital in Engela what is as far as hundred-twenty kilometres from Oshakati and only one kilometre from the Angolan border. The patient was put on the operating table and both legs were stretched by a leg extension device. The femur neck fracture were reduced and fixed by a plate on the lateral aspect of the femur shaft and three long femur head screws. The operation got monitored under the visual display of the portable X-ray machine. When the operation was finished the extension device were removed. Dr Lizette pulled out the breathing tube from the throat and put the oxygen mask on the face of the patient. A nurse removed the operating coats and the lead aprons from the surgeons who stood with huge sweaty spots on their green operating shirts. The patient were lifted from the operating table on the trolley and carried to the recovery room. The young colleague and I went to the dressing room and rubbed the sweat from the skin.

We made a short break in the tea room. The young colleague filled two cups and put them on the pen-scribbled wooden plate of the small low table. The superintendent entered the tea room with his packed side pockets of his white linen jacket and his pale face and informed me that the patient with the breast lump had given her consent for the operation. We fixed the day and made notes on separate paper sheets. The superintendent filled a cup of tea and mentioned the new colleague as a specialist surgeon who would come soon to the hospital. He said that the new colleague would be a relief for the department. Dr Lizette stood up and filled a cup of tea as well, while I sat and kept quiet, since I had met the black colleague whom the black paediatrician had introduced to me in a disrespectful manner. Lizette asked the superintendent from where the new surgeon is coming. “He is a Namibian and did his postgraduate in South Africa”, he said. Lizette expressed her surprise that Namibia had already some specialists. She leant back with a pensive feature as she saw the train of the new era passing by in her mind. She was amazed at this stage what she didn’t expect.