Читать книгу For Justice, Understanding and Humanity - Helmut Lauschke - Страница 4

It was the superintendent who asked, if the operation for the axillary lymph node removal on the young woman with the breast lump could be done at nine o’clock. He said that the patient urged to get the operation done. The malignancy apparently had affected her that she could not sleep. I agreed, though the weekend was the time for reading and writing. I put the receiver down and went under the shower when I enjoyed the silence of the morning with the colourful light of the sunrise which came through the window. A pastel-red ray touched the pile of the written papers on the verandah table as the spirit would emerge from the written words to give them the efflorescence of life. After the cup of instant coffee and the morning cigarette, I left the flat for the hospital. I took the way as a morning walk and looked at the trees and bushes and appreciated the songs of the birds and their jumps from branch to branch. There were still some cocks crowing as they had overslept. The guard at the checkpoint yawned when I said good morning and held the permit in my hand. The potholes in the gravel road were driven out to large dents. The gatekeeper at the hospital had already eaten his morning egg, while the shell pieces lay around the chair. Koevoet had done the nightly raid and had left fresh tyre ruts of the Casspirs with a bizarre pattern on the square in front of the outpatient building. Some ruts went off to the ring road inside the hospital premises.

I went straight to the theatre building. The superintendent sat already in the tea room and waited. He apologized for the inconvenience and stated for the delay that the meeting with the medical director had lasted longer in the previous afternoon. He did not say a substantial word about the meeting and I did not ask for that. It was in connection with the patient that I asked the private doctor, if the operation could be done under local anaesthesia which should be sufficient. The private doctor thought about it longer than expected. Then he said that he would prefer the general anaesthesia that the patient did not feel anything. I did avoid a discussion about the pros and cons. It was no doubt for me that the preference for a general anaesthesia was related to the higher anaesthetic fees which he would charge from the patient what obviously the private doctor had theoretically already in his pocket.

Both doctors changed the clothes in the dressing room and went to theatre 3 where the young woman lay on the operating table. When I came from the washing passage, the right arm lay extended in a right angle on an arm support. The skin of the right chest, shoulder and upper arm were cleaned and the rest of the patient was covered with green sterile sheets up to the anaesthetic frame. The private doctor held the anaesthetic mask on the patient’s face and said: “You can start”. Since the operation had a diagnostic purpose to confirm by a histological examination on the lymph nodes that the malignancy of the breast lump had reached an advanced stage, I made a small skin incision in the armpit and removed some enlarged lymph nodes as suspected metastases. The removed lymph nodes were incised and put into a small glass container half-filled with four-percent formaldehyde solution. The specimen had to be sent with the other specimens from other operations with the hospital bus the coming Tuesday to Windhoek to the lab in the Central hospital. I closed the skin and put a dressing on the wound.

The surgical intervention lasted circa ten minutes, while the patient needed further thirty minutes to get back her consciousness. The length of the anaesthetic time from induction until the state of the regained consciousness was chargeable plus the higher tariff for an operation on the weekend. The private doctor thanked for my work and wished me a relaxed weekend.

I made a short round through the wards. The old man with the inoperable colon cancer had given up his will to live. He breathed deeply toward the relief from suffering and kept his eyes closed in the haggard face when I stood at his bed. The old man was ready to die and kept his mouth closed to avoid any word about life. The other old man was the patient referred from the Finnish-Lutheran mission hospital in Engela on whom the broken femoral neck was fixed. This man read in a well-thumbed bible. He thanked for the operation done that he could use again his leg very soon.

The old woman whose left leg was cut off due to a malignant 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 he thought to do a good work for and on the people.

“You have the great gift to be a good doctor, since you are a good human being with an open mind for the needs of the people”, I said. The young colleague stood up and expressed his wish of keeping in contact. “I will write you, but now I thank you for all that you have done for me. I wish you the best for the future. The change is visible that it will come soon.” I accompanied the young colleague to the gate where we gave each other the hand and said goodbye.

The three Casspirs were mud-dirty when they returned from the veld with the sitting-up squads and took the sharp right curve in front of the gate on the way back to the camp. The young colleague passed the place between flat and guesthouse when we greeted each other the last time before he disappeared on the sandy path between bushes and trees. I closed the gate and went back to the flat. I leant the verandah door by and went to the kitchen for a cup of instant coffee with the chicory supplement and put the cup on the verandah table. I took a seat on the verandah chair at the verandah table in the small sitting room and lit up a cigarette and read the young colleague’s words of farewell again.

This poem arose from a deep-rooted humanity that the reading moved my mind. I learnt the wording and had it in my mind after the seventh reading. The poem had a melancholic pensiveness especially in the saying: “Now I go back to a place where things are white” and “because skin colour should not make the differnce if it comes to honesty and human caring”. In the reflection it became clear that a long way had to be gone, since racial segregation went deep into the blood of the blacks and deep into the dried-up mud and other crusts. Hunger, poverty and indignity of the blacks and the privileges and preferences in life for whites, both had lasted too long and had created a deep valley of injustice and inhumanity.

But the time has come that more whites packed their bags and boxes for the departure to Windhoek and the coastal towns of Swakopmund, Walvisbay or Hentiesbay. Others went deeper to the south like the Free-State in South Africa where the communities were still and mainly white, while the ‘black masts’ were in sight in the far north. People were also packing things into their bags and boxes what did not belong to them and were registered with the Bantu-administration that had given up control and responsibility to its greatest extent. Things like porcelain, tea and kitchen things, and bed linen, sheets and towels were moved from the north to the south despite the washing-proof marks ‘SWAA’ [South West Africa Administration]. There was no order neither in the region nor in the white run administration that things started moving away from the north.

Everyone had the storm clouds of change in his and her eyes and in mind that the empty bags were filled for the way into an uncertain future. The system of injustice and white superiority reacted indulgently to the whites who took everything for granted and took with as much as possible on their final trip to the south. It were the desk sitters with the meaningless faces and short necks and bulging buttocks on the lower and middle floors, and the masterminds with the sphere or cube heads on the top floors in the pyramidal administration buildings, and all of them were trained in the ‘pretorianic’ view through the windows at the south front, and all of them had followed the ‘pretorianic’ instructions and orders through the years without any criticism and hesitation and without any self-criticism.

These opportunistic sitters and nonsense writers started thinking how they would survive and rather change smoothly from one system into the other system with keeping the ‘sit-out’ salaries and the additional allowances on the same level. Administration sitters had no illusion that the white era was running out and the window view had to be changed from the south to the north, what had to be exercised and practised accordingly in the same opportunistic manner. The ideal situation was thought in this way that the whole pyramid tower got turned of one hundred and eighty degrees, since in the old time there were no windows at the north side of the pyramid according to the ‘pretorianic’ architecture. This shortsightedness of the running-out system was one essential part of the design and architecture and the change from white to black was not expected.

Now and under the storm clouds it had been revealed that the old window placements were wrong and no longer suitable that all the desk sitters in the various floors of the white administration started exercising the turning and nodding movements with the cube heads on the broad and short necks to the other side in becoming a smooth turncoat for the new system at the right time. Views and thinking had to be changed into the opposite direction. It had to go to the north to the Angolan border where the Ovambos would come back from exile with the PLAN [people’s liberation army of Namibia] fighters on the Soviet and East-German military vehicles, the howitzers and Stalin organs and tanks of the outdated Soviet T-series. Vast amounts of Kalashnikovs were expected to cross the border as well.

The long-term objective of the promoted administration sitters remained the comfortable life behind the big desk on an upholstered swivel chair with a high backrest in an air-conditioned office with little and meaningless work of little responsibility, but for a high-responsibility salary with all the plus-allowances like in the white-run system before. The old tradition should remain that an attractive secretary should serve the tea with some snacks and something else. Also in future she shall deny the presence of the ‘overworked boss’ with the stereotype that he is hindered or in a long-lasting meeting, while he reads the newspaper or picks his nose with a look through the window or makes some private calls or other things. The change from one system to another system should be not more than a routine change when only the skin colour of the superior has changed. It should not compromise the life with its regular payments of the monthly salaries and the various extras and the certainty of a good medical aid and a good pension. The administration people exercised therefore the turning and nodding movements of their heads and minds right in time to be ready as turncoats for the big swing from the old system into the new system which always requires some unscrupulous skills as well.

The time has come for the turning and nodding movements of the necks and the brains with the ‘black masts’ in sight. It became a kind of slogan: “Black up!”, which hammered in the administration heads with the good noses for the ‘smell’ of the upcoming political and socio-economical changes going with the timely turned opportunistic skills. On top of the Bantu-administration and above of the white ‘Sekretaris’ was [more for optical reason] the black ‘prime minister’ with a few black resort ministers who officially were not members of Swapo. The ‘prime minister’ was leader of a regional Ovamboland party which had parted from the ‘Turnhalle Alliance’. The parties of the alliance had moderate programs and consisted of black people of other tribes as well as of white people who did not categorically reject the colour bar and cooperated with the white administration by following the ‘pretorianic’ instructions of the South African administrator general who got his instructions from the power centre in Pretoria or directly from the South African president. [The former Ovambo-minister of trade was a well known businessman in that time whose warehouses were left out from getting blown up and burnt down. He disclosed in a newspaper after independence that he was a registered Swapo-member since many years.]