The Sunday News
Bruce Ndlovu
THE gates to Mrs Poliyanah Mahlangu’s home in Luveve are always wide open.
Whispers from those that make the occasional pilgrimage to her home, blessed with an unusually big yard for a house in the western suburbs, say that the gates have always been open for as long as they have known her.
It is a sight that is as curious as it is heart-warming. Perhaps the wide open gates are reflective of Mrs Mahlangu, a care giver who has had her arms wide open for those seeking a tender touch in her community and beyond.
When Sunday News visited her last week, Mrs Mahlangu welcomed the news crew with a beaming smile and evident warmth. It is this warmth that Mrs Mahlangu believes has been sucked out of the profession that she has loved for so long.
“When you see patients nowadays they look scared and timid. This is because of the way they’re treated by our children who are nurses nowadays. The way they treat patients doesn’t sit well with us as elders,” she said.
Mrs Mahlangu has certainly earned the right to speak on nursing as a trade. Mrs Mahlangu, or Sister Mahlangu to those that know the 92-year-old closely, is one of the black Zimbabweans that pioneered nursing during a time when it was the preserve of white people in segregated Rhodesia.
She still remembers those days when even sickness could not bring white patients to accept being touched by a black person, the days when an aspiring black nurse had to go beyond the country’s borders to get training.
“At the time some of us went into nursing there were no places where people of our colour could train to be nurses. This country was only training white nurses at the time. That’s why I had to go to a hospital in Durban (South Africa) which is where I was trained.
“After my training, when I had done my general training and my midwifery, I came back home. I started working at the Mpilo Maternity in 1950,” she said.
Mrs Mahlangu remembers her early days in nursing vividly.
“When I went to Mpilo, Silibaziso Dube, who was the first among us was already there. She was the first black nurse and then a few of us followed soon after,” she said.
Despite emerging as one of the nursing luminaries at Mpilo, Mrs Mahlangu said she never came into contact with a white patient in colonial Rhodesia.
“When I returned home, I was working at what was really a hospital for black people, which was Mpilo Maternity. There were no white people there. I never nursed a white patient when I came back to Zimbabwe. Those that actually nursed white patients were those that were working at the Memorial Hospital,” she said.
When she went into nursing, Mrs Mahlangu said her primary motivation was to help the ailing. However, she learnt that the financial benefits of her trade were relatively better than those of blacks in other trades. Back then, black people toiled hard for relatively little.
“I would say that the pay was not that great but it was good compared to what other people were earning in other trades. This is not to say that what we were earning was wonderful. It was just better compared to what other black professionals were earning during those times,” she said.
At 92, Mrs Mahlangu has seen nursing go through various stages. She saw the birth of black nursing as one of the first African nurses at Mpilo’s Maternity Ward and she was there when the country’s healthcare system was desegregated when British imperial rule ended. In 1984 when she retired, she effectively handed the baton to a new generation of nurses.
But she is not entirely happy with where they have taken the profession since then.
“Nursing has not really changed. Nursing is still nursing except for the fact that there’s now an opportunity for one to rise up the ladder especially if they further their education.
“What has really changed in the profession is that when we go to the hospitals, we really don’t see what we’re supposed to.
Nurses nowadays are no longer like those back in the day. Back then when you saw a patient you would tell yourself inwardly that when this patient comes out, I want her to be in perfect health. We don’t see that anymore.”
During her career, Mrs Mahlangu said she lived by the ideals of nursing, adhering to the ideals of Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing.
“I don’t know what can be done. We can reclaim our standards if the nurses themselves decide to change. I say this because when a patient enters the hospital, if you’re a determined nurse, you have to treat them in a way that makes them quite comfortable all the time. That’s what we don’t see anymore. Patients are no longer comfortable. If the people in charge decide to remodel nurses after Florence Nightingale, then we can come back to those old standards,” she said.
Mrs Mahlangu’s history as a caregiver did not end in 1984. Three years after her retirement, she once again turned a new leaf and made history when she oversaw the birth of Ekuphumuleni Geriatric Home. Decades after her delicate hands touched her first patient, she has lost none of her passion for care giving. Among the weak and ailing is where she has always felt at home.
“I made sure that everybody who fell into my hands was always quite comfortable. I always carried out doctors’ orders promptly. They still carry out those orders but that love is no longer that love. Love is the most important thing any nurse can give,” she said.
Mpilo Hospital, where Sister Mahlangu led from the front, celebrates 50 years this month.-*
