let us give thanks

Okayyy……

I started writing a post about how our trip was all about showing love to the community and building relationships but I just got annoyed! The current rant going through my head is about the NHS- its flippen great! Im not going to sit here and say everything about it is perfect but I think we regularly underestimate how lucky we are to have free healthcare!

While we were away we had our fair share of diarrhoea, infections and colds. It got to a point where the doctor recognised me, my UK doctor wouldn't know me at all (I never go) so this was getting weird! Every trip to Umhlanga medical centre then resulted in a mass scanning operation so we could claim back from our insurance- we were sorted. Apart from the paperwork, which was annoying, we had access to healthcare whenever we needed it and all for free (thanks to Tearfund doing our insurance). We could go to a state of the art hospital and know that we would be seen in no time at all, we got a good and personal service even if it was the staff saying ‘o no not you girls again’.

But not all hospitals in South Africa are the same, I also got to see Mahatma Ghandi hospital- a hospital where you can wait all day to see someone and that I recently heard described as ‘the hospital of death’. This is where the people we worked with had to go, people who couldn't afford medical insurance. The two hospitals couldn't have been more different. While we were away I wrote about Mahatma Ghandi and when me and Pippa went, you can read it here.

A couple of weeks ago I dropped my mum at the hospital and she made a comment about how there was a queue- there was about 6 patients and anyway us English are good at queuing! I sometimes have to bite my tongue as I could make a comment on how lucky we are twenty four seven!!!

Tonight I was talking to a friend who has a seriously ill baby and who has to pay for two taxis to get to the hospital. I hate the fact that we live in a world with incredible healthcare but that its not accessible to everyone, because not everyone can afford to pay (through no fault of their own) and not everyone has the NHS. They have named their son Asibonge- lets give thanks. That's something I personally want to do, to give thanks for what I have.

I failed to find the photo of me and Pippa with our medication

where it looks like we have cleared the pharmacy so here is one

of the photos Abi took on safari- this elephant looks so chuffed 

with life!