Sick in South Africa

I took an 88 year old lady to one of the state hospitals that Mr Ramaphosa lauded in his Tintswalo state of the nation address.

The purpose of a hospital visit is to be treated by a medical practitioner - as soon as is humanly possible. Not so in South Africa.

We queued for receipts. Then we queued at the file issuing window for over an hour, invisible to the administrative staff who passed back and forth, some of them shuffling as if they had long lost the will to live. No-one spoke to us. No-one looked at us (perhaps some did look through us). All questions or complaints met with curt, 'why are you bothering me' type responses. Add to this the joys of being directed to some five different offices to no avail. An alien visitor, fresh off his starship, would observe a small, obviously upper class group of humans behind counters, lording it over a large group of peasant supplicants. No different from apartheid's  finest hour. The concept of service is clearly an archaic, colonialist bit of nonsense.

Of Ubuntu there was no sign. uBulongwe ( manure) and uBunja (look it up) were much in evidence. 

Many scams, many frauds, many evils are perpetrated in South Africa, often by those who swore to serve. This is one of the worst: the shameful way in which your parents, grandparents, elders are treated. It's an abomination hidden in plain view. You and I silently consent. 

Shame on you South Africa. Shame on you, ANC.

All of this must be laid at the door of leadership - from lowest ranking supervisor to the president of South Africa. 'Ah, but we are struggling with resources'. I worked once at a primary healthcare NGO (doing work that rightly belongs to provincial and national Healthcare). The NGO relied to a large extent on donors, in a continuous struggle for survival. Patients would bypass their nearest clinics to attend that particular clinic. Why? Service, of course.  Just two minor examples: 

All complaints by patients were examined at executive meetings and were followed up on until resolved.

Doctors, cleaners or anyone else who came across lost or bewildered patients accompanied them to where they needed to be - accompanied, not directed. 

That is the much mumbled about organisational culture in action. Many doctors, nurses and others who could have earned more in state institutions,  preferred working at the clinic. Interesting to speculate why.

I watched a video recently, extolling our riches in minerals, arable land, wildlife, scenic landscapes, diversity. All of these make us a nation and a country poised to make a mark on the world. All of these, the politicians, and in particular the ANC, have managed to gut and destroy.

The story, and perhaps the future, of a nation can be read  on the faces of its people in the crowds. Here, you will read frustration, helplessness, defeat. No thriving country was ever built on these. One imagines that bread queues in the Soviet Union and other workers' paradises wore that look.

South Africa, the answer is simple, if not necessarily easy. Lance the boil. Sever the gangrenous limbs. 

Here is a simple truth: as long as the incompetent, the corrupt, the clowns are mystifyingly elevated to leadership roles that they are manifestly unsuited for, we will languish in this swamp. As long as we lie to ourselves that it is fine and normal to tolerate indifference, laziness, corruption and incompetence, South Africans will wallow in drawn-out misery. For as long as we mistake tired clichès and worn-out slogans for truth and action, we will remain a doomed people, shuffling toward an inevitable going out, 'not with a bang, but with a whimper'.

It's up to you.

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O Tichmann 

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The Struggle to Excel

 Dear Chris Excel

Your tweet:

'Coloured people are also included in BEE they benefit from  it … 

That “B” from BEE stands for “Black” 

Their problem is that they are desperately wanna be white and get white privileges and white don’t want them 

So they end up feeling like victims that are left behind …'

Oh, Chris, Chris. Does not the Book of Proverbs tell us that: 

'Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise: and he that shutteth his lips is esteemed a man of understanding.' 

And, in more recent times: 

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt.

I am embarrassed for you; such a reflux of ill-considered, ill-informed, ill- mannered, bilious stuff. Reading your outpouring is like watching a drunk heaving out his partially digested dinner on the pavement.

You do realize that your flatulent noises on social media say more about you than about those you seek to denigrate. Just as Kelloggs is the breakfast of champions, spite and hateful generalizations are the breakfast of bigots, losers, the immature and the foolish. Make your pick. 

Do you not have a life, Chris? Unfortunately, many will leap on the afterbirth of the misshapen child of your thoughts and tuck into it with gusto. As is customary in this land.

Do you know many people? I mean, in the way that transcends gossip and populist prattle? That is the starting point if you wish to make sense and contribute more than post-digestive waste to the discourse. Of course, if your fervent desire is to mud-wrestle in the pits of racism and mindless hatred, you can ignore that option. Don't Let truth get in the way of a glorious romp in the pigsty.

Surprisingly, there is infinite variety in any group of people. Even yours. To stereotype is the way of the lazy, the infantile and those with darker motives. Again, take your pick. Just remember Rwanda. Oh, and Nazi Germany, Bosnia and the many other fine examples where things began with a nudge and a whisper.

Unlike the Almighty, you cannot see into people's hearts. That one thing about people makes nonsense of every racist rant whispered in darkness or shouted on rooftops. 

Your piece would be insulting to those who poured out their lives trying to make South Africa a real country for people (indeed, insulting to all decent people anywhere), were it not that, like horse droppings, it needs to stepped over and paid no more attention.

Racists, the old, common or garden variety and the new breed, foam and spittle flecked populists, social media tub thumpers - they are all cheaper than a dime a dozen. There's a better, higher way, if we have the foresight and courage for it. You don't need to ask, because we all know. It's easily seen in whether you left the people and the places you spent time in / with / on just a little better or like a typical South African public park or toilet. Yet again, your choice.

I wish you well in the arduous, long march to maturity and a semblance of wisdom and in the struggle for something more enduring than fifteen minutes of dubious fame.

Richard

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O Tichmann 

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When is Too Much Too Much?

Just days after Mr Ramaphosa's anaemic response to allegations of corruption and criminality run riot in the Police 'Services', with collusion from 'business people and Honourable Ones, this:

'DA condemns transfer of arrested, untrained Brigadier to head Moot Vispol, demands immediate reversal and proper suspension'

When is too much too much? What more must the gangrenous ANC do, before they are frogmarched out of office like the confidence trickster bums that they are?

'The Democratic Alliance strongly condemns the temporary transfer of a 29-year-old Brigadier who has never worn a SAPS uniform, never undergone formal police training, and is currently out on bail on serious corruption charges into the post of Head of Visible Policing (Vispol) for the Moot District in Pretoria.'

This would be beyond belief, beyond wildest imagination, beyond drug-induced hallucination, if this were not South Africa, land of the vilest possibilities.

Truly, this is George Orwell's 'Nineteen Eighty-Four' come to life in our country. What we say in every forum and in our media is as far removed from our reality as the sun is from the moon. 

Things have fallen apart. We are in crisis. We are in hell. The convicts run the institution without fear of consequence. The media play the game, floating woolly, fleecy news bites, while rampant crime, corruption, incompetence and buffoonery gnaw at the nation's jugular. Politicians sell their souls and their constituents for half an hour of fame plus salary slip. Never did Rome burn as fiercely to manic fiddle music.

The time for commissions, euphemisms, think tanks, national dialogues, oil and  glibness from fat, fleshy political lips and dried stalks of long discredited, failed ideologies, is long past. Where is the scalpel to sever the gangrenous limbs? Where the cold steel of handcuffs for those who have plundered, raped and betrayed? Now, before we perish.  Before we are poisoned for generations to come; when we will be spoken of as those whose foolishness, willful blindness and deafness destroyed a nation of much promise. Who danced between the crazed fiddlers and the fire. Whose short sightedness and meanness of spirit chose greed, grievance and revenge over the future of our nation.

The Brigadier in question was one of several senior Crime Intelligence members arrested just weeks ago on charges including fraud, corruption and abuse of SAPS secret service funds. SAPS management now claims this is a “temporary transfer” under the Disciplinary Regulations, which allow for redeployment if a member’s presence in their current post is untenable. But nothing in the regulations justifies failing to impose precautionary suspension, which exists specifically to protect investigations and institutional integrity in cases exactly like this.

That this even needs to be pointed out is evidence of how far we have fallen; how deep into the mud and slime we have sunk. Too long ago, we crossed the line that integrity and decency used to hold, guarded by consequences. So many lines that we have crossed, so difficult to recross them.

Appointing an untrained, operationally inexperienced officer to oversee front-line visible policing undermines public safety, the credibility of SAPS and the morale of honest, hardworking police officers who have earned their rank through service and merit. It also places ordinary constables and sergeants under the command of someone unfamiliar with the realities and risks of policing on the ground.

A low budget movie on shenanigans in a banana republic would not dare include such a scenario. It does not meet the abysmally low minimum requirements for cheap movie scriptwriting.  Yet it doesn't raise an eyebrow in South Africa anymore.

That the ANC must go in order for our country to be saved, is as axiomatic as a + b = a + b. Those who waste breath debating this issue, as plain as the curve on Mantashe's midriff, are still frozen in 'liberation' cryo-sleep. They need to be liberated.

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Tipping Point, South Africa

Dear Mr Ramaphosa 

Many express disappointment with your tepid, lacklustre response to a chilling warning of the catastrophe facing us, as we descend further into the hell of your party's making. 

I refer to the General Mkhwanazi saga. Just want to clear that up, as it's one of the many that have been coming thick and fast since you first made 'tepid' and 'lacklustre' your mantra.

You do not disappoint. You lost the capacity to do so many, many ineffectual responses ago. You merely weary, bore and nauseate, like a dose of some dreadful laxative, taken at dreary intervals.

You are the surgeon who, after being appropriately surprised, shocked and dismayed at the size and growth of the tumour, calls a commission of inquiry. Three months into the also wearying, boring, nauseating and, inevitably, ineffectual performance, the patient dies - having lingered on in agony all the while.

We understand that your team is not exactly composed of the brightest and the best that South Africa has to offer. Nor do they shine brightest in the firmament where integrity, honesty, reliability and the like dwell. That is common cause. The evidence is compelling. If you are unaware, scan the news of the past few years. You may even be shocked.

But, Mr President, leaders clean up such messes with alacrity. In the crudest terms, they fire the asses of those who are dragging us to the lowest level of the pit toilet that our country has become. Time and consequences are merciless, for countries, as for individuals. Ask Zimbabwe.

So, sir, you do not disappoint. You merely fulfill your own prophecy. As did so many ANC luminaries before you. You merely confirm, as if any further confirmation were needed, that you need to go. Without delay. We have a country to save. You and your comrades may continue your games of make believe and your good stories from your fantasy and fairy tale shelves. Please, get out of the way. Let those who have a care for South Africa and South Africans do what so urgently and desperately needs to be done. While you dream gently in the sun of deeds done in the struggle for liberty and the far more successful struggle for wealth, ease and power.

Yours in the struggle for sanity and clarity of sight.

Richard 

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O Tichmann 

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Cops 'n Robbers

So our gallant men and women in beribboned, bemedalled blue are mired in allegations of corruption. No surprises there. There have been hints and allegations, (as Paul Simon sang), for decades. 

What is surprising is the silence of the sacrificial lambs, you and I, fellow South Africans. What is the point of democracy, when there is a sense of overwhelming powerlessness in the face of the worst excesses? 

Cancer cannot self-correct or reinvent itself, except as a more virulent, malignant version. It has to be cut out. Voters have the knife. But, to quote from that English bloke's 'Julius Caesar', if Caesar had stabbed their mothers, they would have done no less (than vote for the stabbers).

I think of two possible reasons for this bewildering phenomenon. One: the liberator halo shines strong and dazzling, despite the fact that the only liberating done of late has been the liberation of vast sums of money from public fund captivity. "Ag, shame, they suffered for us, in the struggle'. A bit like having your head held underwater by someone who swam to your rescue from drowning. Through a stream of bubbles, you mouth: "Ag, shame, he really tried to save me". 

The other reason may be phrased thus: "Don't disturb me while I'm eating".

Of course, General Mkhwanazi may not be aware of a massive, brilliant undercover operation, headed by the minister himself. Perhaps, once all the many, many villains, like sardines in the KZN sardine run, are gathered, the net will be closed. 'When?', you ask. Patience, my fellow citizens. You have already waited some thirty years. What's thirty years more?

"Dem Herren sind eine tausend Jahren Wie ein Tag,

Ihm ist ein Tag Wie Tausend Jahr".

(To God, a thousand years are like a day,

To him, a day is like a thousand years".

There, that's comforting, isn't it?

If there is substance to the allegations, then, to the opposition parties, we expect the usual feeble bleating in protest, but it would be nice if you:

'Do not go gentle into that vile night

Rage, rage, against the dying of the light'.

(Apologies, Dylan).

Some historian will probably say, years hence:

"This was their darkest hour". 

Good night, South Africa.

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Capitec Bank, South Africa  

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O Tichmann 

+27 833970723

The President and the Pesky DA

Dear Mr Ramaphosa 

Who says you don't have a backbone? Such bold, decisive action sacking that DA chap who couldn't wait a mere ten days for permission to go on a trip at own expense. I bet that people who flew to Zimbabwe at taxpayer expense on a Defence Force aircraft would have waited a month, if need be. Why, I've sometimes waited months for responses from various government departments. We've waited decades for proper government, while the current lot are faking it and far from making it. Oh, sorry, that's your....

Word on one of the streets has it that Mr Whitfield's redeployment to the streets has more to do with his journey into the foul swamp of questionable 'thath'amamillions'

dealings than his journey to the USA. I'm sure that you have addressed, or will address that with your usual frankness and your newfound boldness. At any rate, we all know that Lotto matters are handled with the same diligence and transparency that all ANC matters, from corruption scandals to SOE fiascos are handled. A few little scandals along the way notwithstanding.

You gave further proof of your vertebral fortitude when you bravely exonerated assorted vill..., pardon, people accused of despicable behaviour. Of course they are innocent until proven guilty. Going by the long running, seat-gripping Zuma saga, that should be in some thirty years' time. 

But, yes, we have far more pressing matters to attend to: dinners, meetings about meetings, a national dialogue costing some R700 million or more. We all look forward eagerly to the succulent fruits of said national dialogue: the end of unemployment, crime, corruption, incompetence and much more. One can almost hear celestial choirs singing joyously as we mumble and drone our way through trite restatement of the blindingly, glaringly obvious. In the absence of decent shelter for many, during winter, at least this brilliant initiative is bound to warm the cockles of their hearts. I do so love how you comrades prioritize the critical stuff.

Our media people are an interesting bunch. Sometimes they come across as a sort of informal opposition to the DA. The DA media briefing sometimes sounded like an ANC / EFF interrogation of the DA. There was very little focus on or reference to the ANC's contribution to the problem. Several times, questions that had already been answered were asked again, albeit using different wording. Our press continues to impress.

Well, sir, that showed those uppity DA people. And it shows us how much you care about South Africa.

Yours in the struggle against difficult coalition partners.

Richard

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Capitec Bank, South Africa  

1378565477

O Tichmann 

+27 833970723

Files and Mysteries of Modern Medicine

 Dear State Hospital CEOs, Minister of Health

I feel such a fool. I thought that the point of a hospital visit was to consult with a medical practitioner.

After many stimulating visits to one of your fine state hospitals, I am a wiser man. I now know that we (South Africa) lead the world in the discovery of the importance of files in modern medicine. Most of our considerable time waiting around in these cheerful surroundings is dedicated to the Great File Hunt. This is how it usually works:

At six am or earlier, you make your way into the great hall of files. The hall is already packed with eager people, hiding their optimism and joire de vivre behind blank, tired expressions. When the clerks arrive, you shuffle from seat to seat, until you have the great, good fortune to appear before a godlike clerk who hands you a receipt. This precious scrap of paper entitles you to join the queue for files. On a good day, the queue moves with agonizing slowness. On a bad day, the queues, (sometimes a second queue materializes), disintegrate and it's every man for himself. You hand in your scrap of paper.

Now, a truly exciting, tense passage of play. Names are called and the fortunate ones receive their bulky, shabby files in battered, brown covers. Exciting and tense because this questions flashes through one's mind:

"Will my file be found?"

 In this particular hospital, files are not the docile, obedient bundles that one may find elsewhere. Here, they are mischievous, cunning creatures that go into hiding almost daily. They probably wait for the moment that the clerks leave for the day, then jump to their devilish game of hide and seek. I have spent several fruitful hours, dashing between departments, trying to track files down. The mental and physical health benefits are probably enormous. 

On one occasion, a helpful clerk asked me for the date of the patient's last visit. As I take different patients to the hospital daily, I could not remember.

"You must remember the date", said the clerk sternly. 

I then saw clearly how all of this was my fault.  Dear patients, please avoid adding to the enormous stress burden of our harried hospital clerks. Theirs is a complex task, requiring great skill and nerves of stainless steel. This may well be why a smile never lurks anywhere near their lips. Also why they need to communicate in abrupt, hurried bursts. Perfectly understandable.

Know-it-alls may argue that there are far more efficient ways to store and share information. How dare they question processes that have been used for ages? And take ages to work through. This is the Great South African way of life that keeps armies of bureaucrats, clerks and others gainfully employed. And you and I on our toes. Who knows how those golden hours spent in queues and polishing seats with our bottoms might otherwise be wasted in the trivial business of making a living. 

Musk warned against artificial intelligence. In the good old days, files just lay wherever they'd been placed. Now, with AI, who knows what's going on once the humans have gone home. It's a devilishly complex business.

Of course, once you have your precious file, many more queues and hours may await you, but who cares? The critical first phase of your healing has been accomplished. 

The name of the hospital? I'm no fool. I don't want thousands of eager patients from far and wide descending on our model of efficiency and compassionate service. Nameless it shall remain.

There's a classic twist. I wrote this article while waiting in the pharmacy; blessed last stop before one gratefully departs the place of compassion and healing. I never seem to learn. It had been far too easy up to then. 

My patient noticed that some of his medication was missing. There was no script for that medication, said the pharmacist. After an exchange of several angry words, punctuated with nautical terms, we stumbled on the key to the medical mystery. On a previous visit, the patient's file had gone walkabout. A new file was put together. During the current visit, the 'old' file had magically reappeared. The script in question was in the 'new' file, which the clerks, bless their hearts, had not incorporated into the original file. Why should they? Why make things too easy for patients?

Yours in the struggle to marry modern technology with caring, compassionate service.

Richard 

Tips for the blogger gratefully accepted 

Capitec Bank, South Africa  

1378565477

O Tichmann 

+27 833970723