This summer I lived in Cape Town, where I was interning at the Cape Times newspaper. One night I went with a group called the Students’ Health and Welfare Centers Organization (SHAWCO) to a township called Gugulethu, a patchwork quilt of a place, the houses all made of scrap metal and wood.

Patients lined up outside the mobile clinic and waited for hours to be seen by one of the four SHAWCO medical students volunteering their time.

It was evident that the doctors-in-training cared tremendously about helping the community. Less clear was the quality of the medical care they were able to dispense. They had only the most basic medicine and supplies to use. They would look at rashes or other ailments and then flip through their books, trying to make a diagnosis and determine what medicines to prescribe…

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Tags: gugulethu, pushing off, south africa