very strong. If you are going to cry, you go to cry somewhere else. When you come out, you’ve fixed your face, you’ve put powder, “hello, hello, hello,” but it’s still haunting. It can only be managed if you are working with people who are loving. We pray, before we come to work, we pray in the boardroom. Yes, we can give medication, but the healing part is God. Melanie Grobler, medical physicist I was born here in Windhoek. I was in matric when my father became ill. He had glioblastoma, brain cancer. That’s basically when I decided I wanted to do this. Throughout his treatment, I saw what he went through and it interested me. I always liked physics, so the best way to combine physics and healthcare was to do medical physics. After studies, an internship and working at Tygerberg Hospital for five years, NOC offered me a position and I came back to Namibia. People who choose this as a career must have the ability to be accurate, to solve problems, mathematical or otherwise, to make a plan if something doesn’t work out. The medical physicist must make sure that the radiation machine gives the exact radiation dosage to the patient as prescribed by the doctor, that it rotates exactly as prescribed, and that everything works together and is within tolerance. I like to compare it to a chemist. In a pharmacy you work with medicine; here you work with a machine that gives radiation. The best part of my job is helping people, trying to help them cope with the uncertainties. They don’t know what is waiting for them in the future and with oncology, chemo and radiation, especially radiation. It’s a very strange room, strange machine, everything is big and intimidating.
have satellite stations or offices so that we could actually treat people closer to home. Because it’s such a long treatment – they may have to stay here for more than a month, six weeks, seven weeks. If we had satellite stations then we could actually treat them and they could be at home, which would make them more comfortable.
The Namibian Oncology Centre 3 Heliodoor Street, Eros, Windhoek E-mail: info@namoncology.com Tel: +264 83 330 5015 www.namoncology.com
But this place is amazing. They really care for the people they treat. We are really one big family. As for the future, it would be wonderful if we could reach more people outside of Windhoek and
21