1 - Introduction: A Hospital in Soweto

Summary

Intake night – Baragwanath Hospital

Mbuyiseni Oswald Mtshali

The ward was like a battlefield –

victims of war

waged in the dark alley

flocked in cars, taxis, ambulances, vans and trucks.

They bore

knife wounds

axe wounds

bullet wounds

burns and lacerations.

A stench

of fresh blood

warm urine

excreta,

mingled with iodine and methylated spirits.

Groans

sighs

moans – Help me doctor!

curses – C'mon bloody nurse!

Doctors darting

from place to place

with harried nurses at their sides.

‘So! It's Friday night!

Everybody is enjoying

in Soweto.’

Baragwanath Hospital

Oupa Thando Mthimkulu

Speak Baragwanath speak

How many souls did you swallow

Who were intentionally killed

Who genuinely and sincerely died

How many arrived satisfactorily dead

Come Bara, tell us the real tale

Of your patients – what do you have to say?

Are they really gone forever

Did they all have inquests

Did they all claim indemnities

How many won their cases

Baragwanath hospital, big one

Are you hospitable enough

To testify to us all?

Baragwanath Hospital was built on the outskirts of the burgeoning black township that would become Soweto, situated just over twenty kilometres from Johannesburg, South Africa's wealthiest and most populous city – not only the largest hospital serving black Africans in South Africa but also the largest specialist hospital in the southern hemisphere (the hospital's size was recognised in the Guinness Book of Records in 1997). Over its lifespan, Baragwanath has gained a legendary status. The Soweto tourist industry includes ‘Bara’ – as the hospital has come to be affectionately known – as a highlight of the ‘Day-in-Soweto’ tours. Many medical students and doctors from around the world have passed through the hospital for their dose of the ‘Bara experience’ – considered unique because of the sheer numbers of patients, the severity of the pathology presented, and the quantity of trauma cases treated. Baragwanath was (and is) ever-present in the media. In the popular imagination and in official publications the hospital's distinctiveness has often been invoked:

Baragwanath Hospital is unique – it is unique in its size (3 000 beds); it is unique in the variety and quantity of medical conditions seen; it is unique in its blend of so-called first and third-world medicine; it is unique in its witnessing of the transition of a population from a rural to an urban existence.