The “Tip” or
Itipini is a shantytown in South Africa in the black Township of Transkei. It
is the town dump for the city of Umtata and it was a series of lean-to
cardboard and plywood shacks that served as the home for the poorest of the
poor of Umtata. I had traveled nearby to
work as a volunteer at the Bedford Hospital in 2005. Approximately 14 years prior to my arrival
Dr. Chris McConnachie and his wife Jenny had moved to the area as medical
missionaries in 1991. He had gone about
building and developing a first rate orthopedic center and she established her
healthcare facility in the "Tip" to provide care for her patients.
These included children and adults, many with the diseases associated with
poverty, neglect, and poor life choices; not only every day maladies, but also
tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and alcoholism.
Active tuberculosis was rampant when she started her work at Itipini. Approximate 25% of young adults were also
HIV/AIDS positive.
Jenny McConnachie was a special kind of person, probably much like mother Theresa,
who also was a caregiver to the poorest of the poor. Nurse Jenny gave wholly
of herself for many years to care for others at the city dump of Umtata. She and her husband unselfishly lived to care
for thousands of people over the years at Bedford Hospital and the
"Tip". The volunteers, like myself, who worked at both Bedford and Itipini
were feted and fed every Wednesday night at her home in Umtata. She prepared a
large but simple meal, provided a glass of wine, good conversation and
Christian fellowship. Usually 6 to 8 volunteers worked there and most would
attend the Wednesday gathering at Jenny’s house.
I worked at
the hospital and did not usually travel to Itipini however Chris (also an
orthopedic surgeon) encouraged me to go work with his wife before I left. The
last day of my volunteer assignment I rode to the town dump and shantytown
village of Itipini where Jenny had an excellent system for treating every day
injuries, aches and pains, and common communicable disease such as cold and flu
for the residents of Itipini. Major
injuries were not usually treated there. She also was the person in charge of
procuring and dispensing daily medications in the community for the severe
communicable diseases of HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis.
I had been
there less than an hour when Jenny's car approached me with her in the
backseat clutching a young thin black man in her arms. He was a victim of a stabbing in the neck and
she was holding pressure on a lacerated artery in his neck. Blood ran down from
the compression bandages she was holding on his neck. The patient was in early
stages of blood loss induced shock and was embraced in Jenny's arms. I was
asked to drive them to the hospital in town.
As I drove to the hospital, I watched in the rearview mirror as this
diminutive white female held tightly to the poor young black whose life was
maintained by the pressure from Jenny's hands on the lacerated artery. She held him in her arms, talked to him,
comforted him and reassured him.
As Christians
we do not speak much of the physical presence of angels or the devil or
audible conversation with God or his messenger. As I drove and watched I
actually felt then and continue to believe Jenny McConnachie was an angel on
earth holding this man. It was the
epitome of Christian love and sacrifice for your fellow man.
Jesus told us
“love your neighbor as yourself” and “no greater love has a man than to lay
down his life for another” Our neighbor
in Christ often may not look like us or be from our same country or even be of
our religion. Jenny McConnachie did not
ask if this man was HIV negative as she held the bloodied compressive dressing
or the results of his tuberculosis skin test prior to holding him close and
whispering to his face to comfort him; reassuring him she would be with him all
the way to the hospital. Jenny McConnachie was an angel trying to save a fellow human being.
To learn more about Itipini
and Umtata (currently called by its original African name of Mthatha) see the
Time article at this link: http://world.time.com/2013/12/13/the-eastern-cape-mandelas-homeland-still-suffers-from-neglect-and-misrule/
