GF Jooste Hospital lies in the heartland of Cape Town's gang territories. Every weekend evening the community tips its bloody victims of stabbings, shootings and motor vehicle accidents into the hospital. The trauma ward is staffed by community service doctors (compulsory service when doctors finish their studies) If it weren’t for Aids and alcohol, the young doctors say, the ward would be almost empty. As it is, they are absolutely swamped.
The young doctors' plight are faced by their peers across the country.

They work 56 hours weekly, with too few beds for their patients, and too few medical resources. Working alone, they make life and death decisions every night - which, they say, they simply do not have the experience to do.
This is their story.

Published - Marie Claire - March 2003