In the latest South African Airways advertisement the airline talks about the one thing that gives it more pleasure than flying South Africans to a foreign destination: flying them home.

“Because the grass may not always be greener on the other side,” the narrator says.

This is a concept that young community service doctor Colin Wittstock can relate to.

After completing his studies at the University of Witwatersrand Wittstock left the country to work in Wales. “I was in the first intake that was due to be hit by community service and I decided to go and rather do my internship in Wales. For me it was the principle of being forced to do it. Also, I wasn’€™t happy at that stage with the way some things were going in this country.

“I found medicine in the United Kingdom not rewarding at all. It was not the reason I went into medicine. I wanted to help those who really needed it, instead I was confronted by people whose worst problem was an ingrown toenail.”

Wittstock describes the UK public hospitals as similar to local private hospitals.

“People live a very privileged life there, living off the welfare system. I started realising that the grass is not always greener on the other side.

“It has been incredibly rewarding for me to be able to assist a 70-year-old patient who has never seen a doctor in his life and says he has suffered from shortness of breath for the past 20 years,” says Wittstock, who is completing his community service at Belfast Hospital in Mpumalanga.

The only permanent doctor at the hospital, Wittstock sees about 17 patients per day.

“It’€™s tough on your own at times, but I have chosen to work in under-privileged areas,” says Wittstock who is studying part-time towards an MBA and is planning to remain in the public health service.

He describes his work as “more clinical” due to the fact that there are no x-ray facilities available and blood results take 24 hours to arrive.

“You treat the person and try different medication, but it is a bit of trial and error,” he admits.

He describes the medication that is made available as very basic, “really only what is on the essential drug list”.

Diseases of poverty top the list of ailments seen by Wittstock at the 12-bed hospital.

“A lot of diarrhoea, malaria and tuberculosis while almost every second patients has HIV or an AIDS-related disease.

“I have two AIDS patients in the wards at any given time, simply because they have no other place to die.

“Also, there is a lot of mental illness in this community, especially in the white community. They (white patients) are also struggling to cope with the fact that doctors no longer fly into the town to do hysterectomies, they don’€™t have a speciality service such as an orthopaedic surgeon or five doctors attending to them only at this hospital.”

Wittstock said services such as ultrasounds and x-rays were also only available to white patients in the previous dispensation.

“They now have to travel or be sent to Middelburg to access these services, something some of them are struggling to come to grips with.”

So, what does a young doctor do for entertainment in a town mainly inhabited by pensioned coal miners and farmers? “Oh, I play rugby for Belfast or study. Otherwise there isn’€™t much to do, maybe visit one of the restaurants.”