THE BUSINESS OF SAVING LIVES

“I will never forget the smell of burn wounds. While still working for the National Renal Care as a Clinical Technician in Nephrology, I was once assigned to Milpark Hospital’s Burns Unit to help revive the kidneys of a young mom who, together with her two children, had suffered third degree burns from a car accident. Dialysis can take between four to eight hours, so I spent a lot of time in her ward witnessing all efforts to restore her life. At that very emotional moment, it suddenly dawned on me that my job surpassed definitions of a career. The life of any patient I encounter lies in my hands,” says Mpume Magwa,