25/11/2020
Sometimes this year seems to be one tsunami after the other… then the riptides pull our feet from beneath us.
As health care workers we live with the brunt of COVID -19 every single moment of every single day. 24/7. We try to live with positivity and spread positivity all around us. We see the effects of anxiety and the economic impact of what is happening in the lives of our patients. Mostly we are in healthcare because we are empaths, so we literally feel what you, as our patients are feeling.
So we try to mitigate the suffering where we can. But most people only notice the visible part.
In Klerksdorp (Northwest Province, South Africa) we are fortunate to have just such health care workers. Two of them, Drs Gerrie van Rensburg and Carla Groenewald, has been quietly breaking their backs to help our community. Dr Gerrie van Rensburg worked endlessly through the past months seeing to extremely ill patients and organizing the response to the pandemic in our private healthcare sector. That was the visible part.
Then there is dr Carla Groenewald, our local child psychiatrist - incidentally married to dr Gerrie. She breathes the impact of the increase in anxiety in our children. Trying to do more, she continued with horse therapy for kids throughout the lockdown. Moving horses back and forth from the stables to the hospital as the kids could not go to the therapy sessions at the stables.
But it is not only children in her care. The horses’ wellbeing was seen too as well. Dr Carla and dr Gerrie went to immense effort and expense, not only to practise regenerative farming on their smallholding, but also to fit each horse with a custom made bit and saddle for their specific bodies as to make them as comfortable as possible.
Then the riptide happened…
Their smallholding was robbed – all the specialised tackle and saddles were taken. The generator for emergency power (in South Africa a must) that pumps water for the horses, wheels from the carts, batteries from the tractors…but all those things only have monetary value.
The suffering following this does not have monetary value. There will be children without therapy, horses hurt by new tackle. Mostly, for me, is the deep disappointment in our fellow man to whom this couple gave so much this past year.
Drs Carla and Gerrie, however, are just thankful that nobody was hurt during the robbery, not a farmhand or a horse…
I beg everyone that read this, that if you are aware of the whereabouts of the stolen tackle and saddles to report is to the local police or just let it miraculously reappear…
