Baragwanath Hospital, Soweto : a history of medical care, 1941-1990 / Simonne Horwitz.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Horwitz, Simonne Janine, 1978- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Public hospitals--South Africa--Johannesburg--History.

Public hospitals.

Hospitals--South Africa--Johannesburg--History.

Hospitals.

Medicine--South Africa--Johannesburg--History.

Medicine.

Black people--Hospital care--South Africa--Soweto.

Black people.

Baragwanath Hospital.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xii, 243 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Johannesburg : Wits University Press, 2013.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Baragwanath Hospital, Soweto illustrates how this rapidly growing, underfunded but surprisingly effective institution found the niche that allowed it to exist, to provide medical care to a massive patient body and at times even to flourish in the apartheid state. The book offers new ways of exploring the history of apartheid, apartheid medicine and health care. The long history of Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital (its full current name) or Bara, as it's popularly known, has been shaped by a complex set of conditions. Established in the early 1940s, Bara stands on land purchased by the Cornish immigrant John Albert Baragwanath in the late nineteenth century. He set up a refreshment post, trading store and hotel on the site - in what is now Soweto - which was a one day journey by ox-wagon from Johannesburg. The hotel became affectionately known as 'Baragwanath Place' (the surname is Welsh, from 'bara' meaning 'bread' and 'gwenith' meaning' wheat'). The land was then bought by Corner House Mining Group and later taken over by Crown Mines Ltd. but was never mined. The British government bought the land in the early 1940s to build a military hospital but by 1947, Baragwanath ceased to operate as a military hospital and under the auspices of the Transvaal Provincial Administration a civilian hospital was opened with 480 beds. Patients were transferred from the 'non-European' wing of the Johannesburg General Hospital in the 'white' area of Johannesburg. Links were immediately forged with the University of the Witwatersrand and Bara would over time become one of its largest teaching centres. This link brought medical students and their teachers into direct contact with apartheid in the medical sphere. This book will contribute to studies of the history of apartheid that have begun to provide a more nuanced account of its workings. The history of Baragwanath and of the doctors and nurses who worked there tells us much about apartheid ideology and practice, as well as resistance to it, in the realm of health care.

Contents:

Cover; Half-title; Title; Copyright; Contents; Acknowledgements; List of Illustrations; List of Abbreviations; A note on terminology; 1 Introduction: A Hospital in Soweto; Intake night - Baragwanath Hospital; Baragwanath Hospital; Carrying out a history of Baragwanath Hospital; Organisation; Endnotes; 2 From Allied Military Hospital to Urban African Hospital; Soweto and its health services, pre-1948; Health care developments in the Soweto area before World War Two; The war years and the debates about the establishment of Baragwanath as a military hospital

Baragwanath's shift to a civilian hospital, 1946-8 Staffing the civilian hospital: The first generation and their legacy; Endnotes; 3 Apartheid and Administration: The Hospital, Provincial Administration and the University of the Witwatersrand; Urban African health care under apartheid; Baragwanath as an apartheid teaching hospital: The role of Wits; Wits and Baragwanath: Clinical and academic reasons for being at Baragwanath; The struggle for control over nursing at Baragwanath Hospital; Endnotes; 4 Missionaries, Clinicians, Activists and Bara Boeties: The Doctors of Baragwanath Hospital

Patients, pathology and physicians Politics, humanitarianism and institutional commitment; Bara Boeties; The Baragwanath doctors; Endnotes; 5 Black Nurses in White: The Nurses of Baragwanath Hospital; Why black women entered nursing: The Baragwanath experience; Exploring the 'altruistic' motivations for entering nursing; Exploring status-linked motives for entering nursing; The Baragwanath experience and identity; Challenging identities: Nurses' strikes and demonstrations; Endnotes; 6 Chronic contradictions: The struggle of Baragwanath in the 1980's

The Mathibela twins: Two children and a world of attention The nature of apartheid medicine: The central contradictions at Baragwanath Hospital; Endnotes; 7 Baragwanath's Transition and Legacy; Endnotes; Bibliography; Index; Plates

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 09 May 2018).

ISBN:

9781868147489

1868147487

OCLC:

1016808927