I have had quite a varied life. Twenty years as a Wolverhampton GP, then ten years as a gastroenterologist doing over 5000 colonoscopies, then a British Army GP for 9 years before becoming an emergency doctor in Cape Town and finally returning to the UK to be a GP in Ludlow. The wheel has turned full circle.
I left Bridgnorth in 2000 before returning last year.
Now the editor of the Town Crier has asked me to compare the life in Cape Town to that of Bridgnorth.
The first and most obvious is the safety here with very little crime
In Fishhoek , a southern town to the south of Cape Town, where I was based, and a relatively ‘safe’ area, it was certainly not safe. Most houses had bars on their windows, alarms which were usually connected to a private armed response unit. The state police are thin on the ground and respond slowly. I have frequently been called to shooting incidents only to arrive before the police. I disarmed a 82 year old woman who had shot her 84 year old boyfriend when he threatened to leave her. The bullet passed straight through his left thigh doing very little damage. Her other seven shots missed him completely. The police confiscated the weapon and let her off with a warning. I owned a semi automaticpistol but did not carry it on duty.
I certified a man , deceased, with a gun shot to his chest and he was also covered in bits of potato. I asked the police whythat would be, and was told that they press the potato to the chest of the victim then fire through it , to act as a silencer. The body of his friend was in the adjoining field, but he had been stabbed to death.
Would I walk the streets at night even in a well lit town centre ? No
Did I constantly look around when walking or driving at any time .? Yes
The feeling of safety here took a bit of time to get used to. My South African wife took a lot longer to adjust and initially refused to walk in High St after six pm. She was ecstatic the day she managed to walk across Listley St car park alone and at night.
Of course we miss the sunlight, the sea and the big skies.
The wildlife is different also. We would sometimes see cobras in the garden. Scorpions were also common and I have treated bites and stings of both. The local vets would call us to transport dogs that had been bitten by a cobra to the vetinerary hospital. We had to intubate them and then attach them to a ventilator , and they usually survived.
Apart from treating snake bites and scorpion stings I came across different diseases. Cholera, HIV, lots of TB, dangerous stuff like Marburg fever, typhoid, malaria to name but a few.
Anyway we are here to stay, but next year I intend to have more time off and become a locum GP.
