The writer found that miracles reside within the walls of government hospitals. (File photo)
There are years when you walk with a quiet hope that your body will not betray you. You take the long route — avoid sugar, drink your water, stretch your back, breathe through the stress.
You take your vitamins, pray, meditate, journal your gratitude into the margins of difficult days. You do it not because you enjoy routine — but because you can’t afford to get sick.
Last year, I didn’t have medical aid. Not by choice. By circumstance.
So, I did everything in my power to stay out of hospitals. Especially a public one. If you’ve ever spent a night in a state facility, you’ll know what I mean when I say — do your best to avoid it. Not because there are no good people in them. But because there aren’t enough of them to hold the weight of so much suffering.
Still, there are moments when the body will not negotiate.
One Saturday afternoon, a sharp pain woke me from my nap. At first, I dismissed it. Took a few painkillers. Curled into myself and hoped for relief. The pain mimicked a period — so I named it one. We name things we hope to control. But this pain refused to be tamed.
By nightfall, I was on all fours, crawling in my bedroom, bargaining with a body I thought I understood. There was no more delaying. No more pretending. I needed help.
I made my way to Ethafeni Clinic in Tembisa — close enough to home to feel familiar, far enough to still feel uncertain.
A file was opened quickly, which gave me a flicker of hope. But the pain didn’t care about efficiency. It pressed harder. By the time I reached the casualty area, I was curled up again — this time on the clinic floor.
There is a strange sort of humility that comes with sharing space with pain. Around me were others — a woman with bruises from home, a man stitched up from a tavern brawl, a child screaming with a fever.
Their suffering made mine feel smaller. Not less painful, just less urgent. So I waited. Because sometimes we measure our pain against the visible wounds of others and convince ourselves we can endure more.
A nurse eventually found me on the floor of the toilet — sweating, shaking, barely coherent. She didn’t speak much. She helped me up. She carried me to a room where two doctors were trying to stretch themselves thin enough to be everywhere at once.
Even in my pain, I asked, “Is it just the two of you?”
The doctor sighed, “Yes. We don’t have enough nurses. Weekends are the hardest.”
She examined me, then paused: “I think you’re experiencing a missed miscarriage,” she said. “We need to refer you to the hospital. This is beyond our scope.”
The words landed somewhere far away. I didn’t react. I couldn’t. I was in too much pain to grieve. Too afraid to understand what my body was losing.
As I left, the doctor caught up with me.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“You’re doing a great job,” I replied.
She blinked. I think I saw tears — but mine were closer to the surface, so I turned away.
By the time I arrived at Tembisa Hospital, it was 8pm. The air was thick with urgency. The kind of chaos that makes you feel invisible.
Shouting. Crying. Security guards herding desperate families away from closed doors. Nurses yelling to keep the lines moving.
Patients crying out from corridors.
The gynaecology section is close to casualty and paediatrics, if memory serves. It was a space of shared sorrow. Women bleeding, wincing, whispering to themselves. No one made eye contact. We were all surviving.
A student doctor — also named Lesego — approached the woman next to me. They couldn’t understand each other — language got in the way. She spoke Tsonga. Lesego spoke Sotho. Despite the pain, I offered myself as a bridge. Translation became a kind of service. It gave me something to do. And it got her the help she needed, faster.
Lesego eventually came back to help me.
She moved with compassion that felt rare in such a pressured environment. She was soft-spoken but efficient. In between checking my vitals and adjusting the sonar, she said: “I love my job. But these conditions … they’re hard. I lost a patient recently.”
The room went still.
“You’re doing a good job,” I told her.
She paused. Took a breath. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”
Later, I watched the team move through the ward like dancers. It wasn’t just duty — it was a rhythm. A kind of grace.
I saw nurses carry mothers like midwives of hope. I saw doctors whisper soft words into hardened hearts. I saw cleaners scrub blood from floors as though they were clearing altars.
I saw God.
I saw God in the sweat on a nurse’s brow.
I saw God in Lesego’s tired hands.
I saw God in the chaos and in the care.
Because where else would God be, if not among the broken?
I was admitted for the night. I watched the rush fade with the changing of shifts.
Lesego stayed until I was discharged. She didn’t have to. But she did. Some angels wear name tags and sneakers.
Yes, public hospitals are messy. Underfunded. Understaffed. Sometimes even frightening.
But in those walls live miracles. Tiny ones. Loud ones. Ordinary ones dressed in scrubs.
And that’s how I know — God lives in public hospitals.