ABSTRACT
The morning prayer session is a habitual feature of life at the hospital, part of the nurses’ daily routine. It is a common practice in hospital wards and clinics across South Africa, and evokes the early mission influence that shaped them. Mission education was a training, not only in work but in moral and social conduct, elocution, dress and other aspects of ‘civilized’ lifestyle. Revealing a disturbingly harsh version of the maternalism that pervaded hierarchical structures during mission training are the memoirs of Lena Turner, the hospital’s first matron and the wife of Bethesda’s first doctor. The autonomy experienced by health workers during this time created the space for a resurgence of energy and idealism, which drove forward a progressive programme of primary health care. The fourteen separate departments of health – including ten that had been controlled by the homeland governments – were integrated into a single, unified health infrastructure.
