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| September 2006 |
Insight |
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Christina Scott
For many South Africans, the first time they come face to face with science is when they are treated by a doctor or a nurse at a clinic or hospital. For a lot of patients, their first experience of science in action can be utterly alienating. But does the problem lie with the bureaucracy, bad health, or the building? Despite newspaper headlines proclaiming the collapse of the public health system, there is very little hard evidence about how well these medical facilities function for their clientele: the people who live, work, and sometimes die in them. GF Jooste Hospital is considered the busiest hospital in Cape Town, serving more than one million people and with over 12 000 admissions a year. The hospital is located in overcrowded, gangster-ridden Manenberg, which was reluctantly created by the Cape Town municipality in the 1960s to house the families of coloured labourers. This hospital is the focus of a pilot project by Mwansa Saidi from the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research in Stellenbosch. The soft-spoken mother of two is among the pioneers of a new field of study called research architecture. GF Jooste Hospital - one of the few hospitals under apartheid to treat black patients in the Western Cape - is her case study. Within three years, Mwansa hopes to develop what is formally known as a user assessment tool to evaluate health facilities across the country. Although the technique is common in more affluent developed countries, the CSIR project appears to be breaking new ground for South Africa. The idea is to make sure that the medical buildings work for the community and the staff, while reducing any potentially negative impact on the surrounding environment. It's a step beyond simply noting whether the building was built within budget or on time, or needs maintenance. Although much of her work requires wading through existing research and documentation, the human touch is always important. "I speak to patients, nurses, doctors, people who use the facility - police rape investigators, community organisations, HIV/AIDS non-governmental organisations," explains Mwansa, 33. "It's interesting to find out how people feel about hospitals." As a child, raised in the Copperbelt region of Zambia, a career as a mining engineer might have been a possibility. But Mwansa was fascinated not just by the technical aspect of engineering, but its effect on individuals and communities. Her first degree was in architecture, after which she came to South Africa to do her Masters degree in construction project management at the University of Pretoria. Later her expertise in assessing the socio-economic impact of improved infrastructure on poor neighbourhoods was honed in a project funded by the United Kingdom's Department for International Development. Her work in impoverished communities has seen her travel from Ficksburg in the Free State to Atteridgeville and Mamelodi in Pretoria to Ndumo in northern Kwazulu-Natal, just below the border with Mozambique. "Research architects are multi-disciplinary," explains Mwansa. "It's a bit of architecture, a bit of engineering, some social science, a bit of construction." Plus a good deal of humanity: "I see buildings in terms of the women and children who will live there, and examine what other benefits need to be added into a community." Mwansa juggles several projects at one time. She is currently in the early stages of a collaboration to assess the effectiveness of the roads, clinics, water pipes and other infrastructure built by unskilled men and women in the public works programme, as part of a larger project analysing poverty alleviation. Again, the focus is on how the system works for all those who participate in it, from civil servants running the project to construction workers to staff to users. She's also "helping out a little" with a project which simulates the traffic patterns of people inside buildings, and preparing a proposal for a PhD at the University of Stellenbosch - none of which she could do without "a very understanding husband", University of Cape Town architecture lecturer Dr Finzi Saidi. "I'm really blessed," she says. And it's not her four-bedroomed house in Pinelands that Mwansa Saidi is referring to. The people, not the buildings, are her focus. More information:
* Christina Scott writes for the Science and Development Network, online at www.scidev.net, and is a mentor in a new World Federation of Science Journalists project to encourage science reporting in Africa and the Middle East. ENDS
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The 60-year-old
CSIR, often described as the biggest research institute on
the African continent, is a leading investor in new technologies and ways of
thinking, including research into the built environment. A wide range of CSIR
research will be on display at the free International Science, Innovation and
Technology Exhibition at the Sandton Convention Centre in Johannesburg from
September 24 to 27. For more information, the INSITE website is