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From the first sentence I was right back there in a government hospital.
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Book: Floor 1
Author: Carla Chait
ISBN: 97806397114546
Also available on Amazon
I was very excited when I was asked to read and review Floor 1 by Carla Chait. To my knowledge, this is one of the first books (and likely only one) to describe what it is like working as a dietitian in the public health sector of South Africa. As a fellow dietitian I was curious to know if Carla's experiences were similar to mine.
For reasons too long to expand on, I did most of my reading while waiting at Home Affairs. As I was experiencing inefficiencies in one public system I was reliving another. I started the book expecting an autobiography of sorts, and was almost disappointed to read that it is a work of fiction. However, once I started reading, I realised the characters, incidents and interactions were all derived from real-life experiences – you just cannot make that *insert swear word here* up. From the first sentence I was right back there in a government hospital. This was almost any commserve dietitian’s autobiography.
The book describes snippets of her daily interactions in the hospital as a community service dietitian. Interactions with patients, with other dietitians and with fellow health care practitioners. She takes you through the many faces of a public service dietitian – the educator, the chef, the porter, the manager, the organiser, the mathematician, the therapist, the encourager, the peacemaker, the swimmer (we do well in deep ends), the magician, to name a few. In the same way, you get to experience the many different types of patients the dietitian deals with and the hardships they face, and the often unthought-of adversities we as dietitians face. For most people a dietitian exists to hand out free weight loss advice and monthly meal plans, or to tell them their food philosophy is just dandy, or, thanks to outdated protocols, we are also good for handing out free formula and “magic” porridge. This book will give people more insight into life as a dietitian and break some of those illusions.
Carla is a good writer, and has truly managed to capture these daily interactions with great accuracy. So much so that the overwhelming emotion I felt while reading the book was frustration. Frustration with the system we call our public health system. Frustration with fellow former colleagues who have shown an indifference towards patients and their conditions. Frustration with doctors who do not really know how to use a dietitian efficiently. Frustration with my own inability to have made a difference in the system. And frustration with the author. I admit I kept waiting for the book to go somewhere, to develop a deep, meaningful conclusion of some sort, for more character development, for a big twist. Instead, I was met with the continuous interactions and the build-up of the author’s (or main character’s) own daily frustrations, fuelling my own. In retrospect, perhaps this is exactly how she planned it? The way it is written mimics the circular path of our public health system, where before you know it, you are right back where you started, you pass the same characters and you relive similar situations. You cannot seem to get out of the circle, and you cannot seem to help others get out either.
I do question whether a reader who is not a dietitian or even a health care worker would truly understand and appreciate the book, but I would encourage others to give it a go and to expand the idea you have of a dietitian and a health care worker.
The post You cannot make that up: A review of <i>Floor 1</i> by Carla Chait appeared first on LitNet.