The liminality of kidney failure in South African state hospitals

Abstract

Experiences of patients attempting to gain access to dialysis in state health services in the Western Cape provide examples that illustrate the usefulness of Turner's work on liminality in relation to the South African healthcare system. The ritualised routines of hospitalisation, and sufferers' encounters with the health services, have frequently been described as rites of passage—from separation to reintegration with a new social status—eg. as a healthy person after surgery or a new mother after giving birth. For people with final stage kidney failure, however, the situation can be more ambiguous as they move through different levels of care, or are expected to wait eg. for a kidney transplant and/or dialysis. The article focuses on the interstitiality of space, time and experience, while these sufferers remain in limbo, between medical conditions and diagnoses, services and facilities.