Selfless Ina Smith has a heart of gold

When describing Ina Smith, the word compassionate immediately springs to mind.

With over 40 years of experience in the health profession, Mrs Smith has always put others first. After spending the last 16 years at Mpati Clinic, Mrs Smith retired, bringing to an end four decades of making a difference. She was recently also honoured by Rotary with a Vocational Service Award for her many years of saving lives.

Fighting back the tears, Mrs Smith looked back fondly on her time at the clinic, recalling how they grew from strength to strength. “When I first started at the clinic, we only had two nurses. When I left, we were up to 10,” she said. Mrs Smith, who specialised in dealing with TB and HIV patients, also recalled the many challenges there were when it came to treating patients, especially in the early days.

With so many misconceptions and lack of information regarding the diseases, treating patients was tough. Now, however, with the advances in modern medicine and more education, Mrs Smith believes there’s no reason why patients can’t lead normal lives, even if they are HIV Positive. Always willing to put others first, Mrs Smith believes that God created her for this purpose.

“I truly believe that God led me to Mpati. He groomed me through life experiences so that I would be able to do the job. Jesus loves me and I love helping people, so it made the job easier.” 

Mrs Smith’s love for her patients and fellow staff was so great, that even after retiring, she still checks up on them every chance she gets.
“You have to build that trust with patients,” she added.

One of the highlights of her career was attending the International AIDS Conference when it was hosted in South Africa in 2016. “There’s always stigma involved when it comes to HIV/AIDS, TB or Mental Health cases. People think that it can’t happen to them, but it can affect everyone.”

After officially calling it quits, Mrs Smith thanked all those who shared the journey with her. “I just want to thank the staff of Mpati Clinic for the many memories over the years and for being a great team to work with. I also want to thank the doctors who I had the pleasure of working with over the years and Rotary, for honouring me with the award”.

Mrs Smith remained ever so humble after receiving the award, saying that she couldn’t understand why her ‘people don’t always see the other nurses who do as much as I do and who take as much strain’.

Mrs Smith will be leaving Dundee to move to Eshowe, but the patients and people of Endumeni will always remain near and dear to her.